#end rib installation | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

halcyone-of-the-sea · 6 months

Text

Black Metal and Bourbon (II)

AU MASTERLIST || PART III

PAIRING: Biker/Mechanic!Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!Bartender!Reader

WORDCOUNT: 10.7k

WARNINGS: Alcohol consumption, smut, NSFW, sex & intimacy, praise kink, brief thoughts of exhibitionism, p-in-v, fingering, hand job, some sub/dom dynamics, sub!Simon for a bit, soft!Simon, property damage, bike crashes (wear helmets everyone), violence, past toxic relationship, sabotage, attempted murder, protective!Simon, etc. (18+ mini-series)

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

Your fingers tighten around Simon’s waist, the helmet you’d been given pressed into his shoulder as the both of you slice through wind—an engine roaring below you from the Honda Rebel 500. The fit was a tight one, Simon not having a proper second seat beside the passenger kit he’d been quick to install not a few hours before when you’d hesitantly asked for a ride into a neighboring town. Your body was directly above the back tire, and Simon had been firm in his words when he’d been adjusting the back suspension in the bustling shop.

“You’re not lettin’ go until we get there, copy? I feel your grip loosen, I’m pulling over.”

You had begrudgingly agreed, needing the high-quality art supplies a twenty-minute drive away. The stores here didn’t have what you needed, and, not owning a car as this town was entirely walkable if need be, this was your only option.

Once you’d gotten on that bike though, Simon hadn’t needed to reiterate himself about holding on—you did that all on your own. Yet, that wasn’t to say you weren’t enjoying this.

Lips peeled back into a smile, your eyes stare out across the unfolding hills and mountains in the distance; fields of verdant grasses and trees. The vibrations of the Rebel left your head jittering, but this view was the clearest you’d ever seen.

Chuckling, the driver under your rib-cranking hold blinked at the nearly missed sound, only able to tell from the movement of your chest at his spine. Simon’s sunglasses glinted over the thin sliver of flesh that would otherwise be the only piece of his face visible, and his fingers twitched as he stared ahead at the open road. The man had given you his leather jacket, taking a spare of black coloring like an all-dark cat, his boots and pants matching the theme that carries over.

You shout above the whipping of the airways.

“This is amazing!” Simon puffs a laugh at that, though his heart patters ever faster like a dog at the turn of a key. He doesn’t answer, even if his lips itch into a smirk to tell you he’s appreciating the spinal re-adjustment you’re giving him.

Your laugh echoes out through the scenery, and your heart has never been more full.

It had been a decent amount of time since Simon and the others had come into town—three weeks since you’d been hired on your off days to go and paint the mechanic’s shop. A base coat had already been applied, then the secondary and the final with the help of a very animated Soap saying that no one could get to the tops of the walls better. Gaz had seen him hit himself with the soggy paint roller not five minutes later after trying to flip it, and that had been the end of the interference on your work.

All that was left was to start the mural.

There hadn’t been a peep from Graham or his goons—they’d even left you alone on your walks back home. As much as you wanted to be elated about it, there was a brief stint of paranoia in the days that had followed the party. Graham Whitaker was a coward, but he didn’t…let things go.

But holding onto Simon Riley as he pulled into the nearby town made that sharpness at the back of your mind flee in an instant. The mountains and fields dissipate to tiny houses and long stretches of connected businesses—sun-washed bricks surround you as Simon shifts the tires to dodge potholes.

His head moves slightly to the side, and you hear the call through your borrowed helmet.

“Where am I headed?”

“East side!” You rest the bottom of the helmet on his shoulder, seeing a sliver of his October browns through his sunglasses as he rips his eyes back to the road. “Look for the rose bushes!”

“Makin’ me go deaf,” Simon mutters to himself, but he does as you instruct. Parking in the street outside of the art shop, he moves out the kickstand with one foot—the other resting on the ground so you don’t tip. He gives you a look over his shoulder to get off first as the engine cuts and the jungle of keys comes to silence inside of his pocket.

Giggling, you let go of his hard waist and step out to the concrete of the sidewalk, turning around and fixing the strap of your carry bag with a hidden grin.

“I think I just found a new form of transportation.”

“Then you can forget about it,” Simon smirks, taking off his sunglasses and sticking them to the neck of his compression shirt. “Helmet, Sunshine.” He reminds, looking around for a moment.

You slap your hands to the side of the item around your head as you continue to giggle like a child, elated and feeling the throws of wanderlust—you’d never felt so alive than when watching the world pass by at your sides. How quickly you can form a routine of boring days, one after the other. You felt…light again.

A finger grabs at the visor, flicking it up as your crinkled eyes come into view for the gruff man and his raised brow.

“You drunk?” Simon stares, tilting his head as he looms closer, studying you up and down.

“No, Brown-Eyes,” you roll your eyes teasingly, waving his hand away as you unclip and pop the helmet off before it’s leveled back to him. He takes it and holds it loosely in one grip, blinking at you slowly. “I’m excited. Can I not be excited, then, huh? Not happy seeing me enjoy your company?”

“Let's get this over with, yeah?” Simon shakes his head but his amusement is heard, slipping past as you eagerly follow after, expression airy.

You hum, leaning into him and smirking.

“C’mon Simon, you’re completely taken with me—I can see it.” There was no question that the two of you had become close. There was rarely a night when he didn’t come to visit you at the bar; had even taken up walking you back home too, though there was little need to. Simon had said it was because he had nothing else to do, but you doubted it. Since the shop had opened, there had been no shortage of work.

The man grunts as he opens the door for you with a shoulder, sending you a blank eye. “Taken aback.”

“Fucking jerk,” you grin at him as you slip inside, face loose with banter. Simon chuckles lowly and follows, standing behind you as his boots clop to polished tile floors.

This place was exactly how you remembered it—holding an old feel with the beams in the ceiling and the raw brick walls. There are tables with paints and brushes, all neat and orderly with unique looks and designs to them, even the wall has shelves of old wood holding hidden nicknacks and unique wonders.

Simon gazes around with a glint of interest in his eye, understanding now that the painting was better off in your hands. He has to wonder how you managed to find a place like this.

“Over here,” you say. Walking to the very back, your hands are already reaching for the quality brushes you’d need for the mural. Simon’s hands slip into his pockets, stance casual in a way he’d thought he’d lost a long time ago.

It was no secret that Simon trusted very few people. It wasn’t just because of his past military experience, it was his life in general—each turn led to something that could go wrong like a gun in the hands of a criminal. But you had been nearly sly in the way you’d grown on him.

The quick-witted comments, the way you spoke and carried yourself; your light and unapologetic attitude. He was ashamed to admit how many times he’d stared at the bar from his shop’s garage—under the body of some car with grease up to his elbows, legs dangling as his back was on top of the creeper. Brown eyes that can pinpoint your form before his mind blanks and sweat pools at his collarbone.

It was something that Simon was afraid to name.

“Bloody expensive,” the man mutters in the present, fingers pushing at the price tag of some paints nearby. “You sure you need this shit?”

“It’s not shit, Riley,” you scoff, grabbing two large brushes and three smaller ones from wall buckets, pointing one at him. “But I have to agree on the expensive part. You should see how much I would spend when I was really into art. You’d puke your blackened guts up.”

Simon hums, giving you his attention as you peer at a table of rich paints in smaller cans a few feet away.

“Why’d you stop?” He asks, the soft tinkling of piano music coming from somewhere in the back.

You pause, your back turned to him as you look at the label of a small aluminum container of enamel paint for vehicle detailing. Licking your lips, you clear your throat and ease out a nonchalant, “Graham,” and end the conversation there with less blood spilled.

Your Ex had almost sucked all of the individuality from you—you’d barely made it out as you are.

Simon’s eyes darken, clenching his jaw after a moment as looks away. It's only when you put back down the enamel paint can that he speaks again.

“He wasn’t worth your time,” he eases out, giving firm advice like orders. As if he wants you to believe what he’s saying to the fullest degree. “You know that?”

You snort, turning back around. “Yeah, I know it. Why do you think I threw the guy out? He ran through women like a damn kid with a stack of new playing cards.”

Simon blinks from over his mask as you walk to the counter, putting down your brushes and adding in a few containers of nice pigment. As your fingers ding the bell up front, your free hand digs for your wallet.

Before you can pull out the wads of cash that you’d need to pay, smelling of booze and all, a credit card hits the table. You stare at it in silence for a moment.

“Simon?”

“You’re putting it on my wall,” he rolls his shoulders to dispel tension from the previous conversion as the employee comes out from the back. “M’not going to make you pay for the tools to get the job done. Not a fuckin’ heartless bastard.”

“Heartless? No,” you tease, though your face burns and crashes with a fiery inferno of adoration. Inside of you, your stomach flips and your throat tightens. Oh, it was coming on bad, wasn't it? “A bastard…?”

“Shut it,” Simon glares from the corner of his eye as you raise your hands innocently.

“Alright, alright. A very handsome and generous bastard, better?” You hear a hum, a huff of breath.

“Getting there.”

The ride back was much the same, but it still filled you with awe. Your hands were looser now, even with the added weight from your filled bag, but that didn’t mean you weren’t aware of Simon’s presence. Once more your helmeted head was set at his shoulder blade, resting as your lungs pulled in fresh air even if it was a bit heated from the barrier. Simon had pushed the thing back onto your head the minute your leg was about to straddle the bike, firmly grabbing your chin and tilting your face forward as he shoved it on.

“Safety first, Sweetheart.” You had sworn you nearly went weak-kneed at that.

But the sturdy presence before you made a very comfortable headrest even if the longer ride was beginning to make your legs ache and give you a migraine from the noise.

Your hand was flat to the man’s covered flesh, the oversized jacket around your frame, and in that moment you discovered that you were almost entirely submerged in Simon Riley until it became impossible to remember who you’d been before him. You were drowned in his scent—his presence an ever-present weight of purpose and prospect.

Blinking over the view and feeling Simon’s pulse under your fingertips, you realize with a start that Graham had never made your stomach fill with butterflies over a simple word; never made you pause or have to re-think your thoughts because you’d entirely lost them when he entered a room.

With so much going on, and at the same time so little happening…what exactly were you supposed to make of it? There was no question you liked Simon—there was no question he liked you, either. It was obvious by the looks Price would give the two of you when you came by with lunch for them all; free drinks.

How the both of you would sit and talk, exchanging stories while Simon showed you the adjustments he had made to his bike. The issue was that you and Brown-Eyes were stubborn. Pigheaded.

Emotionally constipated.

Your eyes drag along the view, but they always shift back to the body that’s stuck in your grip; how his heat moved through his clothes, warming your wind-beaten hands. You’re right there at his back, hanging off him and you feel…good.

There just had to be something to make one of you snap.

Entering the garage, Simon once more parks his bike and lets you get off first, and you unclip your helmet and slip the object from your head with a puff of air.

“Thank you, Simon,” you breathe, watching him stand. “Drinks on me tonight, okay?”

“No need for that,” his brows pull in, confused. “If I didn’t want to, I would have told you.”

Your hands pass the helmet, which he takes as your fingers brush one another's lightly. You repress a sharp inhale, scoffing playfully at him as your eyes soften.

“I’m not going to leave without saying thank you and you taking it, Brown-Eyes.”

“Well, then I just took it, Sunshine.” Simon motions his head outside. “Now get going ‘fore I come to my senses.”

Laughing, you shrug and take your leave, all of your items safe in your bag for a time when you could use them next.

“I’m already gone,” you breathe, and a soft brown gaze sticks to your form as you cross the street and slip inside to clock in.

A truck parked down the street has its window glinting in the sunlight. It seems to agree.

—

Simon tipped back the last of his bourbon and sighed, putting it down on the bar top as you polished glasses.

“Anything happen today?” He asks you as you put the sparking material to the light, tipping it to try and find smudges before it passes your acute inspection.

“Nothing interesting,” you respond, humming. “Had to kick a few guys out, but it was nothing big.”

Simon’s interest makes his eyes shift to you like a wave, head tilting to stare as the warm light cascades over your figure. He waits for you to continue, but when you don’t, he prods with a slightly concerned undertone.

“Why?” Your lips twitch as you turn to look at him, exasperated.

“Put a cork in it, Big Guy, it was just a few who had too much to drink—I cut them off and sent ‘em home.”

Simon grunts, “That’s a girl.”

You ignore the way your heart jumps to your throat and the tingling of your arms. “Anything with you?” Your voice is higher than it should be. “Beat off any bartenders from your property?”

“Can only think ‘o one,” he speaks slowly, his voice wafting about as the both of you were the only people here. Your chuckle makes his heart constrict in on itself.

“Oh,” you tease, face pulling in with mock confusion. Your body moves closer as it leans into the wood. Simon’s lips twitch from where they're visible, the fabric of his balaclava pulled over his nose. “Tell me about her.”

“Yeah?” He speaks in a low murmur, eyes half-lidded in that dead-and-buried kind of way—only he could pull that off and still look so handsome. You had said once that he felt like danger, and you suppose that had to be true. Simon Riley was danger, and you had taken those snake fangs and put them directly in between the cross-hairs of your neck and your pulse, waiting, wanting for that fatal strike.

You had bet that the sting of those fangs might just be the best pain you’d ever felt.

Simon Riley was unabashed freedom.

“She likes to think that she’s the bloody boss o’ me,” Simon grunts, scars, and tattoos on full display; there’s blackened grease on his fingers, under his nails. You listen with bated breath. “Comes ‘round all the time now, hangs like she’s under a noose. I can’t figure her out. Not for the fuckin’ life of me.”

Simon doesn't know what he’s saying, but he can’t quite help himself when you’re looking at him like that. Your eyes going wider, your usually snappy and quick tongue silent as you take his words in like law. It was addictive to see you gobsmacked—the man has to stop himself from thanking Graham Whitaker for being such a fucking fool even if the thought of ever being near that man again made him want to clench his fists.

“And?” You push, trying to force your mouth into a playful smirk, but anyone can see it for what it is. Your faked emotion falls short, leaving behind only that which Simon can claim to be the sole owner of.

Astonishment. Admiration down to its base form—a woman gazing at something that should not be, and yet is here among the ashes and ruins of broken earth and open roads. A sliver of sky between the rain clouds.

“And?” Simon mirrors, that numb mock.

The both of you are closer now, puffs of air hitting the other. Everything in this bar became a backdrop, shifting colors and images like some dream. The dart in the ceiling was nothing to you—the tables that needed to be buffed, the bottles restocked; even the trash that you usually took out at this time was only a shape in the corner of your vision. It all blurred around him, and while you spoke again, Simon understood that he had left the city for something new; something that he could revel in and worship like he had his guns and his duty.

Your sentence is whispered.

“Why did you come here?” To this town? There was no answer for that. It was picked at random—even Price knew that. It was nothing special, not even to the bugs. But here…

Simon parts his lips and utters on the lightning of the air particles, all rushing past as if he was still on his motorcycle with you—your hands around his waist and your nails digging into his flesh.

“For a bartender that keeps making my damn head spin.”

For a long minute, there’s nothing that happens. The AC whirs and the lights outside flicker over the stretch of the empty street. In your chest, your heart hammers with the strength of the Titans. A mechanic, a veteran; a man with broken, October eyes.

How could he be the one thing you were looking for?

Your eyes stay locked, those shredded flecks of color holding secrets that you want to know instantly—you want to learn his tattoos and the way he thinks, know Simon's dreams and aspirations. To you, that was better than any physical destination or journey because it was one in and of itself.

Simon was an enigma.

“Keep talking,” you mutter, lips so close now that they brush the man’s own. He doesn’t blink as he watches you, his lungs unsteady in his chest as he takes down a deep breath.

“Why’s that, Sunshine?” His voice is raspy, and his accent makes you shiver.

Simon’s tongue comes out to lick at the corner of his mouth, sneaking back in as your gaze flickers down to watch pupils blown. “Because I like it when you speak to me like that,” you have to admit, a whine trapped in your throat that you won’t let out.

There’s a low chuckle that makes your legs close together, moving like honey through your veins.

“Can do more than talk.”

This is a game—a test—can either of you go this far? Is it more than lust, is it more than some strange attraction between two people who don’t belong here? A relationship of need rather than want?

You don’t care enough to test it, because if there’s one thing that this town taught you, it's that you don’t need to worry about the future so long as there’s something promising right in front of you.

And Simon Riley was as promising of a man as you had ever met.

Your lips meet his, and his hand is eager to snap to the back of your skull, pushing you into him as your eyes pull shut and the edge of the counter digs into your guts. Air is exhaled from your nose, mouth heavy, and skin hot as it digs and molds to the rough scrape of Simon’s stubble. His fingers pulse into your scalp, waves of something sawing you open as he stands quickly from his stool and pulls away only to push right back in.

Your hands move into fists on the counter, stuck in this dance of wet lips and shaky legs.

Simon groans into your mouth, shifting his head as a purr emanates from his chest and makes you respond with a silent gasp that he takes advantage of. A tongue slips to run over your own as the lights glint outside, pushing itself in before retreating just as swiftly before teeth nip at your swollen bottom lip. Your eyes snap open, locking with deep wells of brown that seem more endless than the depths of space.

You both breathe heavily, the bar silent to the two souls that seep into one another. Not once do either of you look away from one another.

The man seems hesitant, and before he speaks, the rasp in his voice is felt as he blinks.

“These parts in me have been shuttin’ down, Sunshine.” Your brows slightly pinch in for a moment, confused at this turn in tone—cocky had gone to still-stone as if Simon had laid eyes on Medusa herself.

But you know what he means. You’d seen it in his stature and how he spoke to others; you knew nothing much of his past beyond a handful of stories from his service and none of them had been pretty. And of his childhood, you knew nothing.

You know it can’t have been good.

Your head softly tilts, a small, delicate smile forming the words of some long-lost deity.

“I’m sure you have the tools to fix them, Simon.”

He blinks at you, fingers still stuck to your head. “Don’t know if I remember how to use ‘em.”

Simon’s giving you a way out of this if you want to take it; you know that he thinks you should.

“...Then you’ll just have to teach me, won’t you?” You whisper, stubborn as always. “I told you I was good at keeping secrets, right?” He hums, eyes the most open and soft you’d ever seen them as he melts—forehead connecting to yours as your smile grows wider, truer. “Then I’ll keep yours closest, Brown-Eyes.”

You both kiss once more, more delicate as the man takes a deep breath of you. Your smirk pulls along his flesh like a brand as he holds in a quiver.

“What’s a bartender without a bottle of Bourbon on her shelf?” He growls into you, and not wasting a moment rips his lips from yours and wipes at his face with the back of his arm.

“Such a mouth,” he mutters, moving as you stand there to push open the half-door to let him get to you. You stand waiting, pulse wild and lips tingling. “Cameras?”

Your head shakes without you knowing it, and a finger is hooked under your chin, maneuvering it as he sees fit. Another grabs onto your hip, kneading it slowly as you melt into him. Your hands grasp into the back of his belt and his eyes spark—hips canting instinctually.

There’s a hard prod at your inner thigh.

“Only one at the door.” You set your chin to his chest, gazing up. “Back room?”

“Won't have you on the floor,” Simon says bluntly, unphased. Your core pounds, stomach tightens as you have a sudden need to get rid of your pants and touch yourself as dampness pools through your underwear.

“Such a gentleman,” you’re breathless, voice airy. “Guess I’ll have to be on top.”

Simon’s breath gets caught as you slip past him, sauntering to the back door and pushing it open as you slip inside. You had already started fumbling with the zipped on your pants as the man pushed on the barrier just before it could close, coming in and letting it slam behind him as the click of a lock could be heard.

With your shoes off, you can feel Simon’s eyes burning into you as your fingers send the zipper down your navel, the sound of the metal teeth being separated from one another a call to action. When your thumbs hook the top, ready to send the fabric down, you let the man watch before your eyes shift back up to lock together.

Simon’s gaze was intense—unblinking and unmoving beyond the slam of his heart and the pulse of the erection in his pants, begging to be palmed as you stood only feet away. The man’s hands clenched, knuckles going white.

While holding eye contact, you let the pants—and your panties—drop to the ground with a whoosh of fabric. Simon tenses, but doesn’t look away.

You smirk, taking a few steps forward.

“I’m surprised.” Your hand captures his waist, one moving to stroke along the prominent v-line that’s hidden by his shirt. Simon’s heavy breath meets your head as his blown pupils make his eyes look black entirely. He’s almost in a trance. “Usually I’d be having to snap my fingers.”

“Better than that,” he grits out raggedly. You have to agree.

Your mouth finds his neck as he leans back against the door, letting you do what you wish as his hands settle on your hips once more, rubbing up and down as your own eagerness drips from you. Simon clenches his jaw as you bite down, taking and sucking on the skin as he hisses when you give him hickeys, eyes fluttering.

“‘Such a mouth’ you said,” you comment, hand falling lower to hear the jingle as you unclip his belt. He stares off as your hand rests and cups him, sharply inhaling when you rub your palm over the large tent. Simon fights the sway of his hips, but the widening of his legs is telling enough, pelvis knocking forward as you groan, a line of slick falling down your thigh. “I’d bet you’d like my mouth, Brown-Eyes, wouldn’t you?” Your joke and your teasing of his dick—your hickeys and your sly eyes—they all at once snap something inside of him.

You find yourself manhandled with a squeak of shock and a jump in your gut as your legs dangle, moved back, and pressed into the very door where Simon had been moments before. Your feet settle as his figure descends.

“Your mouth, Sunshine?” Brown eyes glint, staring you down from where he taps your legs open to the air, kneeling with an open belt and pre-cum staining his pants. “Want to see what mine can do?”

There’s no more than a dangerous smirk before his face slots itself into the clutch of your pussy.

You gasp, hands going down to his covered hair as his nose slides along your clit, making lightning go up your spine as you push down on him, grinding as a long stripe is licked, tongue flattening out at the nerve before a loud groan makes Simon’s mouth vibrate as it attaches itself to you.

Giving you your own medicine, teeth lightly bite, tongue flicking as your cunt clenches over nothing, fingers grasping guilty as your head knocks back with a loud whine.

“Fuck,” you gasp, toes curling as your hips move back and forth.

Your body can feel his smirk, your juices leaking out to drip at his chin, falling down his throat as this beast of a man sucks and mewls around your clit like he’s possessed. Hands grasped your thighs, holding them open. Well, one anyway.

Lost in the movements of his mouth, cursing and gasping as he keeps trying to build you up to the point of rapture with every hard flick and measured nip, there’s no way your dopamine-addled brain can comprehend the fingers at your cunt before they’re already inside and curling outward.

You moan out his name pleadingly, the pace of your hips instantly increasing as Simon’s chuckle makes your lungs constrict. A separate heart-beat lives in your navel, skin sweaty and slick making its way down his fingers.

“Being so good,” your voice breaks as Simon’s wide eyes from below meet you as your head lolls forward. He stutters, hearing the wet squelching of your pussy as his movements cease for a moment. You whimper, face pulling in, and he instantaneously gets back to it with increased fervor and ferocity as if he’d never just felt his cock twitch in his pants and his abdomen bunch up.

Your eyes widen, rapturous moans falling from your lips in blown-limpness as his mouth and fingers do sinful things to you.

The sounds coming from below were feral and animalistic at best, sopping wetness and loud groaning—it makes it all so much better.

“So thorough for me, Simon. Making me feel so good Brown-Eyes,” you babble, tightening your core and palming hands shoving him impossibly farther into you. “Such a fucking perfect mouth—perfect fingers, knew you could make me cum on ‘em, please, Simon, fuck, oh God right there,” you break off of the praise into desperate whines. Your quivering body shakes and ruts faster, Simon’s stubble making it all burn in such a way that leaves you gasping, back begging to arch as everything comes to a tipping point.

Simon can feel it by the way your walls flex and pull in, how their slipperiness gets so loose it’s not even a problem to finger-fuck you even as your cunt bares down like a noose. Your fluids drip past his elbow, falling to his pants as his pelvis involuntarily tries to get friction from his zipper by humping the air in broken intervals.

He’s breathing heavily, but not as much as you are, broken up by groans, grunts, and his open mouth licking of your engorged clit. He’d never admit to you how much your praise was making him want to bust in his own fucking pants.

“S-Simon,” you knock your head back into the wall, eyes going glassy as the knot in your navel goes painful, a vile itching so very close as your spine begins to arch for the man’s viewing pleasure. “So close, oh God, so fucking good. Need it, Simon, need it from—”

Your breath hitches, fingers twitching into tight fists of fabric and the hair underneath as your walls clamp down.

Orgasm ripping through you, your voice lets out broken, airy, moans of Simon’s name like a prayer, hips continuing to spasm and toes curling inwards. Not letting up his assault, the smug man’s tongue and fingers draw the entire experience out until your legs are too weak to hold you, having to be pressed back into the wall by white knuckles and fingers stained with your cum. You hear it drip to the floor and see it when your half-lidded eyes blurrily make out the ragged appearance of an arrogant Simon, clear beads falling off of his chin and his lower face decimated by your pleasures. The bottom of his balaclava is stained—sopping with absorbed juices.

You both stare—you, lust-blown, and Simon, ready to grasp at himself and stave off the near-painful erection that needs to be taken care of.

But you’re true to your words.

Not seconds after your release had flooded him, your hands pushed at his chest and shoved him to the floor. Simon grunts but lets your hands quickly fiddle with his zipper and send it down. Not a moment is wasted, and the man’s hands move your hips higher as you pull his pants and boxers down just enough to let his dick spring free and slap his abdomen.

Your hand curls around it and he groans long, pushing up into your hand as you stroke him quickly and mercilessly with the spread of his weeping tip. Simon’s words come out as a way to steady himself, but the work of your hand is easy to get lost in as his voice is a growl.

“Tase so bloody good, Sunshine, yeah? Be needin’ that every day,” his mouth is taken in a kiss, and you tase yourself on his tongue as he shakes and his fingers flex into your flesh. “Fuckin’ hell,” he says as you lick his lips, panting below you as he quickly loses himself. “Not gonna…”

Simon’s orgasm builds incredibly fast—and not once does your hand slow in its course. He blinks in a blind panic, mouth letting off soft sounds of confusion as he looks down to see his red cock and how you play with it like a toy. You chuckle at him as his sounds get louder, legs rising, and the slapping of skin on skin addictive.

“You are good with your mouth—and your hands. Should have guessed really, you are a mechanic after all. Got yourself all worked up.” Simon's hand comes up to your head pressing your lips back to his as his abdomen tightens and quivers, thighs shaking as his hips try to meet your break-neck pace but just can’t.

What were you doing to him? Why can’t he last longer than a few mere minutes?

You break off and connect your forehead to his, brown eyes fighting to not go blurry and his mouth open with fast breaths. You push out as you feel his tip twitch and spurt prematurely, “Be a good boy and cum, Simon.”

He groans loudly, eyes fluttering as they try to stay locked to yours before the wet splatter of his rapid ejaculation layers yours as well as his abdomen sticky and soaked. It keeps going, not stopping until Simon’s eyes have come back down from where they had fled to the back of his head and his small grunted whine lets you know you should stop pumping him so violently.

You release his member and go to rub along his abdomen, massaging the skin and laying kisses on his clothed chest slowly. His hands loosen on your hips, thumb pulling back to carefully run circles into the flesh as you hum in appreciation.

Simon's quivering slows to a stop.

“You sure you only work a bar, then? Bloody fuckin’ hell.” Simon hisses, looking down at himself. “Made a fuckin’ mess, yeah?”

“Only fair,” you mutter, moving up to press your lips together as you both sigh. Simon’s breath hitches as your stomach rubs him. “I like having you under me. It’s nice to see you look confused.”

“Don’t get used to it,” he mutters, and a red sheen comes to his flushed face. “Won’t happen again.”

Your face goes mischievous, head tilting. Simon growls a weak, “Don’t.” You chuckle and hide your face into his neck.

“Don’t test it?” You ask into his flesh, your body still pulsing and needy at the display you’d managed to pull from the stoic man. Your tongue licks over your placed hickey with a newfound appreciation for the black and blue mark, blowing on it as Simon feels himself harden again. “Or don’t acknowledge that Simon Riley has a praise kink and when a woman tells him what to do he—”

Your spine settles to the floor, hands stuck on either side of your head and digging into the wood. Simon’s eyes glint primarily, and you keen to him as your arms move to wrap around his neck as your cunt tightens.

“Thought you said you didn’t want me on the floor?” He grasps your chin, moving his face to be above yours so he can speak plainly and dead-like. A surge of power takes over his voice, and you yield with a rising of your legs and a shiver as his fluid-slick abdomen slides over top of yours.

“That was before you made me cum in a matter of fuckin’ minutes by just stroking my cock. Now,” he breathes, “now I’m going to fuck you how you deserve.”

He grasps your legs and pulls them around his waist, locking them as he lines up his half-hard dick and bullies it inside of you, your arching back bends into him, but your shocked moan is cut off as Simon starts to move. The pressure inside of your pussy is tight enough to feel like it could snap—your gummy walls taking the curve of his veins and the grate of his head as the tip curves upward. On girth and size, Simon is the largest you’d ever taken, and your face pulls in with a mix of pain and pleasure before the latter takes over completely.

“Get me to be your toy, eh, Sunshine?” Simon keeps your chin grasped, not letting you look away as you try to garble words over the heavy slap of wet skin. “Keep me ‘ere so you can play with me like you’ve been doin’ from the start?”

“So full,” you seem to have lost that edge, staring up into brown eyes as your spine digs into the wood below you, your cunt taking the fast slaps of Simon’s prod as it reaches every part of you that you could ever ask. Every trust makes your legs tighten, clamping down to keep him there and ring pleasure like water. “Such a big cock, Simon.”

He huffs, but his pace increases, panting at you as your lips meet for a sloppy and slobbering kiss of teeth and saliva. Sweat falls from both of you, coating your faces and lower halves with more liquid to make this dance easier—staining already ruined clothes.

“Splitting you open, am I? So tight,” Simon grumbles, grunting as his elbows shift to stay beside your head. “Gettin’ me off so easily, need ta return the favor for making me feel so good, Sunshine. Bloody perfect cunt, takes my cock like it was made for it. Hear that?” Your skull moves to push into the side of his face as he bites at your neck, ravishing you as the forward and backward motion of his body makes your mouth hold back mewls of raw need. So many sounds—so loud and wet it was lewd, borderline obscene with every pump of the man’s hips that more just spilled out of you, pooling with every back and forth spreading of your hole.

Simon bites a long whine back and angles himself higher, making you shout and cry as a burst of white light explodes in your eyes.

“Making me want to fill you full of myself. Over and over, make you drip with it—go until you can’t walk. You’d take it too, yeah? You’ve got such a good look on your face, you bloody love it when I stretch you open like this—takin’ my dick so well, Sweetheart.”

You were both animals trying to get fix after fix—drunk off scent and a biological urge.

At the words, your pussy tightens around him even more, Simon holding back a loud groan and letting your little puffs of air grace his ears along with the ravaging dig of his fucking.

“You like that?” You whine, face burning as a hand descends to play with your clit. You gasp loudly and moan, not hiding the way your hips jump and rut and fight to keep Simon’s cock taking you raw.

“Simon!” You call loudly. “I like it—fuck I love it, Brown-Eyes. Keep touching me, please, please keep going. Keep talking, love it when you talk like that.”

“Makin’ fun o’ me,” he scoffs, “but the little temptress has the same bastard kink, eh? It’s alright, then. I’ll just help me get you off—”

The front door of the bar opens from beyond the wall.

The both of you stop all carnal desires instantly, wide eyes snapping back and locking with each other. A pin could drop, fast breaths and fast hips held back even as you both quiver and your nerves plead to keep going. The need doesn’t last long. Simon's fat hand covers your mouth as your eyes glint with panic before getting right back to it.

You try to speak, to get the words out that you should go out there, but it’s all cut off by the way he rubs you every right way. Your hand anchors to his back as someone walks around the bar, their voice muffled just like yours is, but this person has no idea you’re getting railed in the back room by the mechanic from across the street.

Simon’s eyes are dark and urgent, but his hands can't as the slap of skin that’s still incredibly loud, and the wetness that follows all but telling. Your moans and whines are hidden, kept back by a tight palm as he smirks down at you. His hips are bruising yours and you can feel the hard bone of his pelvis as it slots itself fully into yours.

“Good girl,” he whispers, accepting the words with hard thrusts that make you whine like a dog, pawing at his gargantuan shoulder blades. “Keep quiet. I’ll make you feel good.”

Your heart hammers, walls flexing and clamping at the words. Outside the walking continues, searching for you, no doubt. Simon's hips increase, almost cruelly, and your cut-off cries spill from between his fingers.

The bastard chuckles and watches, letting your hips meet his as your release builds with the added need to finish quickly.

It was rabid now your back arched, how the person outside mattered so little to you now, in fact, maybe you even wanted them to hear you like this—being fucked so perfectly to the point where you had tears in your eyes and your body was growing numb; mind blanking to only pleasure and the grating press of a foreign entity all the way to where it digs at your cervix and makes you see starts with every addictive thrust.

You can’t hear anything over the previous sounds, that and rough breathing are the only things in this hot room—the air tense and ready; anticipation a drug of the highest order.

“C’mon,” Simon grunts into your ear, hand flexing as his lungs burn. He wasn’t far away either. “Let me see it—how your face screws up all nice and pretty for me.”

Struggling to keep your eyes open, you can only stare at the ceiling as the door of the bar slams shut once more, whoever there leaving. Simon releases your mouth and you fall apart with a spine-breaking arch and a high, feral, keen.

Your release is subsequently followed by Simon’s own, his body spasming as he gives three more violent pumps before the warmth of his cum seeps into your womb with a loud groan and a pound of his fist into the floor. He grinds you both through the aftershocks, the sparks of electricity that make both of your hips jerk just a few more times before you fall limp and useless.

Simon stays inside of you as he shifts to the side, hooking one of your hips over his thigh as you stay face-to-face as your bodies gasp and pant for air.

When the two of you come back to yourselves, some delirious minutes later, the first thing that you both notice is the tightness of your clothes and skin. Glancing down at the mess you’ve made of yourselves, you both slowly look back into each other's eyes, pausing.

You’re the first one to snort, before you have to hold your loud laughs back behind your hand.

“Well, I sure do have some more secrets to keep,” you say through your fit, knocking your head to Simon’s chin. The man is smiling, his eyes crinkled and mouth jerking in a series of chuckles.

“Proper few.” The laughter died down to a simmering emotion of amusement.

You smile at Simon, and he stares back, a hand coming up to touch your cheek delicately before it traces the lines of your face.

“You know I meant it, right?” You ask him, and those browns blink at you in question. “What I said before we decided to fuck. About keeping your secrets.” Simon’s face gets slightly more serious. Your hand cups his cheek, feeling the stubble on your fingertips.

“Simon,” you say, “I don’t want this to just be a one-time thing, okay?”

He watches you for any glint of hesitation—of a lie. But there is none.

“Why,” Simon asks. Your answer is simple as you smirk, recalling words from a while ago.

“You’re just going to have to stick around to find out.”

Simon shoves his lips to yours and drags you back on top of him.

—

You both exit the back room two hours later, clothes ruffled and bodies far dirtier than ever. You have a limp in your step, a pulsing ache between your bruised legs, and yet you’d never felt better.

Simon presses a kiss into your temple.

“Walking you home,” is what he says, and you sigh through an adoring look. You were tired, incredibly tired, and you hoped that Simon would share your bed tonight so he could hold you like he did back there.

“Deal,” you wink, and the man huffs a chuckle, back to that same stoic mechanic that you knew.

It’s only then that you realize that Celina had never shown up for her shift. Pausing behind the counter, you blink and look around, confused as you flatten out your clothes. Simon catches on quickly, brows pulling in with concern.

“Something wrong?”

“Celina,” you tell him, “she never showed up.”

A beat.

“...Probably kept away,” Simon tries to lightly say, implication enough to make you scowl.

“No,” you utter. “She would have tried to break the door down if she actually came in. She never would have walked away.”

The man hums, pulling down his balaclava and looking about.

“What do you want to do about it?” It wasn’t mocking—he was being honest. Your lips thinned out in thought.

“Well…I can’t leave the bar unattended, she needs to be here in order for me to go home.” You motion a hand helplessly, shaking your head and walking forward. Through a sigh you grumble, “I guess I have to call her or I’ll—” A shadow darts from across the street and your head snaps to the dark window.

Words coming to a swift stop, you gaze outside with blank eyes, mouth open in confusion. Simon stands taller, not having seen the strange event but not liking the shock on your face as he pivots to the view to study it.

Brown darts over the street lamps and the closed body of his shop, along the sliver of the obsidian street and the tops of bushes in the plant boxes. But there was nothing there and Simon glanced back at you from over his shoulder with furrowed brows.

“Thought I saw someone in a…” you frown, eyes not leaving the window as your heart tightens. “In a mask.”

“Mh,” Simon watches for a moment before he grunts and tension seeps into his muscles. “Mask?”

“Like yours,” you say quietly, suddenly very still. “Without the skeleton.”

Simon moves back slowly, one foot backing up before he’s behind the counter again and shifting nearer to you—your eyes flicker upward but swiftly return to the view. He pulled out his phone from his wrinkled pants, and no sooner had he put it to his ear that you saw the individual again. This time it wasn’t just one shadow, it was three, and there wasn’t just a flash of black mist and then poof gone again—it was worse than some schoolyard prank.

There was a bat. There was the swing of a strong arm. The glass explodes with a resounding shatter and the shrill yell falls from your mouth not milliseconds later.

Getting tackled down, Simon keeps your head to his chest as he shifts to hit the ground first, body sliding slightly before you’re forced under him and protected by his bulk. Grasping at him, you clench your eyes shut as large projectiles are hurled through the broken window and make contact with the bar shelf right above the two of you.

But Simon doesn't move for a second. Not as the bottles shatter and drown him in alcohol and colored glass, not as the bricks fall back from gravity and strike his spine with a loud thump. He holds you to him, curled over your body as if in reverent worship, grunting as he takes the beating without thought to anything else but your safety. Loud shouts and laughter echo in from outside, but your wide eyes only stay and focus on Simon, his fingers gripping across your back and creasing your shirt. You flinch as a spec of glass knicks your arm, slicing through it with a sharp drag of an uneven edge.

Simon growls into your scalp, but as he attempts to squish you farther into him, the barrage, just as it had come, entirely stops.

Staying there, breathing heavily and your mind panicked, you have no time to think before Simon shoves himself up and snaps his enraged eyes forward. Like a large beast, his hands are in shaking fists, alcohol dripping from his shirt and glass pinging against the wood. You can smell blood.

“Simon,” you say in concern, moving to stand up quickly as you try to get your breath back.

What the hell had just happened?!

“Stay there!” he barks, eyes tight as they dart back and forth to nothing until they find something.

No one was there anymore, but in that absence, the true damage was brought to light. You ignore Simon’s words and shift until you can peek over the top of the counter, fingers shaking and mouth dry. The man beside you is stone-still, his darkened eyes lighting like fire and brimstone as the anger can all but be tasted in the air.

The mechanic’s shop across the street. Seen through the broken remains of the bar as if a tornado had come through on the dusty air.

It had been ransacked.

—

The illumination of the police lights takes over everything, pushing the dark away as Sheriff Russel tries to get statements from the two of you. But your attention keeps getting brought back to the stiff-standing presence of Simon.

He hasn’t spoken beyond clipped sentences, even when he’d called Price, Johnny, and Gaz to explain the situation.

“Can you explain what you saw?” The Sheriff eases, and your attention is drawn back.

“It wasn’t much,” you stutter, shaken. “Shadows—men wearing masks. One had a bat and hit the window before they started throwing bricks.”

Simon’s eyes shift over the damage, numb gaze finding more broken glass, thrown paint, and dents in the garage door. The front had been trashed with garbage, and the lobby was ruined—it was by some miracle that the bikes had been left alone for whatever strange reason.

It didn’t make him any less full of wrath.

Your hands are still shaking, and your arm still leaking small droplets of blood down your flesh. Simon’s injuries were worse; he’d taken the brunt of it, but he didn’t seem to care at all, even as the crimson liquid stains his wet back.

“Simon needs medical attention,” you speak lowly to the Sheriff, head moving forward. “Can we do this later at the station?”

“I’m fine,” the man in question grunts, voice deep with anger before turning and walking back to the two of you. Not once do his eyes stop searching the area; on high alert even now and not eager to be out in the open. Those old instincts were creeping back over him, and he wanted to get you somewhere safe so he could handle this situation himself.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know who was responsible and while property was one thing, your comfort was another.

How dare anyone do something like that to you.

“You’re bleeding,” you explain, eyes tight. A hand brushes over your arm, taking it up and inspecting the small cut that you wear.

Feet shift, and through a clenched jaw Simon utters, “So are you.”

“You know what I mean, Brown-Eyes,” you try to make him listen, but it’s fruitless.

“Don’t worry about me,” the Sheriff walks to assess the damage, letting the two of you speak in hushed whispers and firm looks.

“You sound stupid,” you hiss, and Simon’s fingers rub your skin softly, his study of your body taking place in a slow sweep. “Of course I’m going to worry.”

“Need to stop shaking.” Your face creases at the comment.

“I’m not shaking.” Simon grabs your hand and puts his fingers through yours, raising it between you so you can look. Your eyes shift down, and your limb can clearly be seen vibrating like an engine in his hold; the fingers unable to close fully.

Not speaking, Simon cups it with his other hand and presses, grounding you as your lungs take a deep breath before you can clear your throat.

“I’m fine,” your words barely make it to the air.

“...Now who’s sounding like me?” The man mutters eyes creased as he stares. “Breathe.”

You listen, taking another deep breath and staring at Simon’s chest.

“Up ‘ere,” a finger moves out to tap under your jaw, making you tilt your head up to lock with his browns. “There we are, then. Focus. M’right here.”

“You’re good at this,” you grumble, put off by your own separation from your body.

Simon tilts his head. “Had to be.”

You spare a strangled huff at that.

How quickly things could go wrong—you had thought that tonight would be the best night of your life, but now it was just one single instant that things had made sense, the rest a stain on your memory.

“You know it was Graham and his friends?” Simon nods, still watching you and making sure you’re calming down properly, waiting for that adrenaline crash. He knows. “What are we going to do about it?”

“Right now?” The man pauses. “Nothing. You’re coming down with me to the Bed and Breakfast. Staying there.”

So that was how Simon shifted his priorities, walking you down the road as more and more police showed up—there would be more talking in the morning, you had given them everything you’d known so far. It was also how you were mobbed by three more concerned mechanics as you entered their temporary living situation until houses were purchased, blue and brown eyes blinking at the two of you quickly.

“What in the bloody hell is going on?” Gaz had asked, but you were much too tired to speak beyond leaning into Simon’s shoulder and grunting.

“Steamin’ Jesus,” Johnny had muttered, only in boxers as he’d shoved out of his room. “Heard the sirens—what’s been happenin’ without me?”

Price had been the one to finally settle everyone and push out a stiff order to leave Simon and you alone for the night. With various glances and tense looks, you were both allowed into your room with little more trouble.

It was tiny but clean, and Simon had locked the door with a grumble and moved you over to the bed so you could sit, moving off to run a bath.

You heard the pipes squeak—the whoosh of water as it entered the tub.

Your mind has still not entirely caught up to itself as Simon leads you forward and begins undressing you; taking off your top and letting you shift out of your own pants. The bathroom tile is cold, and you wrap your arms around yourself when you’re entirely bare as you can’t find the words to speak. That is, before Simon takes his shirt off and you see the damage that’s been done.

You gasp, hand reaching out but stopping above the cut skin surrounded by a million bruises and large welts.

“Oh my God,” you whisper, delicately touching the skin. None of the slices were deep, but the horror was still there. “Simon…”

Brown eyes soften, and the balaclava is removed as well before a kiss is dug into your forehead. The shade of his hair matched his eyelashes, and now with the full picture, he was as handsome as you imagined him to be, though to all others the scars and the crookedness of his nose might be a shock. You hadn’t expected anything different.

“Just bruises, Love,” he pets your neck, thumb running over your pulsepoint.

“You’re all cut up,” your eyes water, but your stubbornness holds them back as you try to take everything in from his willingness to show you his face to the events of tonight. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t know that he would do something like this, really, he was always a jerk but he was never…never bold like this.”

Cupping his cheeks, you kiss his jaw, salty water tracking down your face as you hear Simon take in a breath. He pulls you closer and hugs you tightly, curling over you as if another barrage of bricks was imminent.

But there wasn’t going to be any danger here. Not with three other veterans down the hall.

“He ever…?” You shake your head, shakily uttering a quick response to Simon’s trialed-off question.

“No. No, I’d never stand for that.” The man’s broken body loosens, a long sigh exiting his nose in blatant relief.

“Good,” is all he says. “Deserve better.”

You sniffle, getting a reign on your emotions. “I’ve got better.”

During the shared bath, you clean the others’ wounds, your back to the wall as you run water over the stretch of Simon’s shoulders, washing away the blood. Your nails drag over his skin as he shivers, not looking back at you as he reaches behind and takes one of your hands into his. The black stain of his tattoos rubs along your bare arm as fingers intertwine, your limb moved and held to his abdomen as you kiss one of the knobs in his spine softly and hum to him.

“Thank you,” you whisper into his skin.

Simon doesn’t respond, only leaning back into you more.

—

Two days pass with no sign from Graham or his friends—Celine, either. Everyone in town was on edge, and in that time you’d been put on paid leave from the bar on account of your involvement and the potential involvement of your coworker. So, you spent most of the time at the shop with Simon, as he’d asked you to so he could keep an eye out.

You had thought that maybe this was a one-time event, and had believed it, as well. Graham had made a point, and being the idiot that he was, he’d pay for it. If he was smart, he’d be out of the country by now—there was no mistaking Simon’s vendetta now. Price had to reel him back in the day after the vandalism.

You’d woken up to an empty bed, having been fitted into one of Simon’s incredibly large shirts and sweatpants for pajamas, and heard arguing. Feet padding like a cat, you had pressed your ear to the door and listened with held-back breath, as if only a peep would make the heated conversation stop.

“He made her bleed, Price. He put her in danger!”

“Get your head on, Simon, you aren’t in the service anymore,” Price had hissed, shadows slinking along from under the door. “You can’t do anything about it.”

There had been a low growl, an aggravated breath.

“I can’t sit ‘ere when he’s waiting like a fucking robber. This is my responsibility— happened on my watch.”

“Since when did that fucking happen, Simon, eh? What’s been going on with you two?”

A pause. “...It’s complicated.”

“Then un-complicate it—you’re thinking like a damn soldier.”

So here you are, fixing the streaks of miscolored paint that had been spattered over the mechanic’s shop as Simon comes out, wiping his hands with a rag.

“Good thing I didn’t start on the mural yet,” you comment to him, stepping back and putting your roller down. The rag is offered and you take it with a small smile while you slide it over your fingers. “Else I would have tracked him down myself.”

“Would ‘ave helped.” October eyes flicker along the drying paint—the marks still visible. “M’sorry.”

“If you won’t let me apologize,” you raise a brow in challenge. “I won’t let you either.”

Simon’s eyes crinkle from behind a new balaclava, missing the skeleton details. “Cheeky.”

“It’s called being truthful, Riley.” You sigh through the tilt of your head. “But the bad news is that I had to use up the paint, and I’m not even halfway done with this. It didn’t help that they used a darker color than what I wanted as the backdrop.”

“Want to take a drive out, then?” The question is swift and honest as it's aimed at you like a distraction from the anxiety. Simon motions his head to the garage. “Got a bit before I’m needed, m’sure you could use a break, yeah?”

“You don’t have to,” you utter, moving to rest a hand on his bicep. He almost purrs at the touch, leaning in.

“Want to,” Simon grunts slowly. “Bikes are still good. Bastards knew I’d skin them if they touched ‘em.”

“I’m sure,” you chuckle, teasing him through a smirk. “Big Bad Simon Riley.”

“Fuckin’ hell,” he breathes at that, turning back around as you follow after, laughing.

You both get onto the Rebel, and the brown leather jacket moves your way along with the helmet, slipping it over your head not seconds later as Simon grabs his spare.

“Are you sure you shouldn't ask for another helmet?” You had brought it up the first time as well—the prospect of a crash.

“Only a small ride—I’ll go slow, Sunshine.” Knuckles tap the top of the helmet in reassurance. “Matters more that you’re the one wearing it.”

Your face creases up, but you sigh and nod, wrapping your hands around Simon’s waist and tightly holding on as the engine starts rumbling below you. Moving your feet up to the rests, you scoot closer as the man pushes off the ground, flipping the kickstand back up before he leans forward slightly and lets the bike do the work.

As before, the two of you get out of town and nature opens up—but as soon as you really start to let your worries slide away and focus on Simon’s pulse and the freedom he gives you, there’s a cold wind from the west. Coming up and dragging along with it, a dark rain cloud sits over you both about a seven-minute drive in.

“Should we pull over?!” You shout in question as raindrops begin to patter off your helmet. The bike makes a strange chirping sound, and you blink over Simon’s shoulder until your attention is taken away by his answer.

“Soon!” You nod, trusting him to know, and ease back. Your fingers trace the small bulge of scars at his waist, shivering.

One minute later, you’re about to say you can see the town ahead when that chirping starts again. Brows furrowing, you grunt in the back of your throat and yell, “What’s that sound, Simon?”

He glances back briefly, unable to hear you.

“The sound!” Simon’s fingers flicker, head moving down to the bike below him—the hum of the engine was too strong up here, he can’t hear anything out of the ordinary.

“What are you—?!”

There’s a great shriek of black metal, and the Honda Rebel 500’s front wheel breaks off from the motorcycle fork and the bike flips.

TAGS:

@sheviro-blog, @ivebeentrashsince2001, @mrshesh, @berryjuicyy, @romantic-homicide, @kmi-02, @neelehksttr, @littlemisstrouble, @copperchromewriting, @coelhho-brannco, @pumpkinwitchcrusade, @fictional-men-have-my-heart, @sleepyqueerenergy, @cumikering, @everything-was-dark, @marmie-noir, @anna-banana27, @iamcautiouslyoptimistic, @irenelunarsworld, @rvjaa, @sarcanti, @aeneanc, @not-so-closeted-lesbian, @mutuallimbenclosure, @emily-who-killed-a-man, @gildedpoenies, @glitterypirateduck, @aldis-nuts, @writeforfandoms, @kohsk3nico, @peteymcskeet, @caramlizedtomatoes, @yoursweetobsession, @quesowakanda, @chthonian-spectre, @so-no-feint, @ray-rook, @extracrunchymilk, @doggydale, @frazie99, @develised, @1-800-no-users-left, @nuncubus, @aldis-nuts, @clear-your-mind-and-dream, @noonanaz, @cosmicpro, @stinkaton, @waves-against-a-cliff, @idocarealot

1K notes · View notes

lipglossanon · 11 months

Text

Hey Pretty, Won’t You Take A Ride With Me?

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊

┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ˚✩ ⋆｡˚ ✩

┊ ┊ ┊ ✫

┊ ┊ ︎✧

┊ ┊ ✯

┊ . ˚ ˚✩

{previous installment} || {next installment}

stepbro!Leon S. Kennedy x fem!reader

Warnings: 18+ minors DNI, stepcest, feelings are starting to happen 👀, dirty talk, flirting, jealous Leon, kissing, unprotected sex, fingering, creampies, breeding kink, boyfriend/girlfriend role play (it’ll make sense 😂), car sex, semi-public sex, pussy spanking/slapping, squirting, slight cockwarming

So so tired (finally back from vacation!) and wanted to get this out! 😘 so def not proofread 🤣

Title from Hey Pretty by Poe (also a nice remix)

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊

┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ˚✩ ⋆｡˚ ✩

┊ ┊ ┊ ✫

┊ ┊ ︎✧

┊ ┊ ✯

┊ . ˚ ˚✩

“What do you mean it’s family bonding?”

“That’s exactly what I meant, family bonding,” your mother sighs, exasperated with you already, “we’re all going out for the day to spend some quality time together.”

You groan, slumping down on yourself from where you sit on top of the kitchen counter.

“Besides,” your mother ignores your eye rolling, “it’s the company picnic and they want us to bring our families. It’ll be a nice day!”

“But mom—“

“The car’s loaded up, so we’re ready when you are,” Leon’s voice cuts you off.

You glare over at him and stick out your tongue, “Rude.”

He grins and flips you off, “It’s just my charm, Princess.”

You roll your eyes at him and turn back to your mom who’s finished grabbing her purse, “It’s gonna be so boring; you’re just going to end up schmoozing with your boss anyways.”

“Honey,” your mom sighs again, tugging your arm, “it’s not going to kill you to hang out with your family for the afternoon.”

You slide off the counter with a groan, “Fine.”

You look at Leon who’s staring at your thighs. With a frown you look down and see the tail end of the bruises he left on your skin the other night poking out from the edge of your shorts, making you quickly tug them down before your mom sees it. Leon’s eyes jump up to yours and he smirks.

“How about this,” she points to Leon, “you two can carpool and after a few hours, I’ll let you leave the picnic early. We got a deal?”

You squint your eyes at Leon who only shrugs.

“I’m game,” he gives you the fakest smile, “what do you say little sis.”

You purse your lips but slowly nod, “Sounds fine. And you promise we can leave early?”

Your mom laughs and gives you a one armed hug, “Promise, sweetie. Now c’mon we don’t want to be late.”

Leon waits and lets your mom walk out before falling in step with you.

“Aren’t you excited?” He teases you, his hand ghosting across your lower back and ass.

“Cut it out,” you elbow his ribs.

“Hurry it up you two!” Your stepdad calls from the front door, jangling his keys in hand.

“Yeah, Leon,” you exit the front door first, Leon on your heels.

Your stepdad closes and locks the door then tosses a second set of keys to Leon.

“Just follow us and drive the speed limit.”

Leon nods, “I know the drill.”

Unlocking the car doors, Leon climbs into the driver’s seat while you get comfortable in the passenger.

Your parents pull out of the driveway and honk. Leon huffs while rolling his eyes and you snort at his attitude.

He side eyes you, “Play nice, princess.”

You bat your eyelashes at him, “I am nice.”

It’s his turn to snort, “Sure thing.”

With that, he pulls out onto the road and follows after your parents.

It’s actually.. nice. The radio is tuned to a variety station and Leon lets you control the temp, blasting AC against the muggy heat outside.

“Think it’s gonna rain,” you muse out loud.

Leon only hums in agreement, eyes on the road. This gives you the opportunity to take in his thick biceps and forearms. You press your thighs together when he drums his hands on the steering wheel, making his muscles and tendons flex.

You bite the side of your thumb imagining those arms holding you up, pressing you against a wall and—

“Think there’s going to be a lot of people at this thing?”

Leon’s voice pulls you from your daydreaming.

Blinking, you look at his side profile and shrug, “There usually is; we’ve been going to these for a few years now.”

“Oh?” he glances over at you, “well what can I expect?”

You sigh and turn your attention back to the window, “Just a bunch of ass kissing and lame family games. Same tired old shit that literally no one cares about.”

He laughs and you look back at him, eyebrows raised.

“S’just cute is all,” he gives you a soft grin, “you don’t get so fired up all that often.”

“Shut up,” you grumble, fighting down your own smile, “you’ll see what I mean.”

You lapse into a comfortable quiet and before you know it, Leon’s pulling into the packed parking lot. He parks as close to your parents as he can and shuts off the car. You both get out and walk over to the trunk of your mom’s car.

She comes around the side waving a blanket at you, “You two can grab this and go find a good spot in the shade.”

Leon bundles the blanket in his arms and motions for you to lead the way, “After you.”

Sighing, you guide Leon into the venue and trek over to where you usually setup at this company picnic.

“Hey!”

You both turn at the voice.

You smile, “Oh hey, Steve.”

Steve walks up to you two, a big smile on his face, “Hi! I thought you were bailing this year.”

You roll your eyes, “I tried. Oh Steve, this is Leon. Leon, Steve.”

Steve waves excitedly, “Nice to meet you.”

“Sure,” Leon looks at him, dead eyed expression on his face, “c’mon princess, we gotta setup.”

“Yeah,” you smile at Steve as Leon tugs you away, “well I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

“See ya!” Steve calls out, catching a red haired girls attention and taking off in that direction.

“So that’s Steve?” Leon grimaces.

“Yep,” you pop the p on the end, “and if you notice the girl he’s latched onto, you’ll see that that’s Claire.”

His upper lip curls but he only pushes you to keep walking. You stifle a laugh and finish the walk over to the usual spot your family uses— it’s under a big tree on the edge of the venue, perfect for keeping out of the way or interest of anyone.

As soon as you and Leon spread out the blanket, your mom and stepdad join you carrying a mini cooler filled with drinks.

Your mom frowns at you, “Same spot as usual? I thought we’d try somewhere different this year.”

You fold your arms, posture stiff, “Nothing wrong with this spot.”

Your mom sighs but doesn’t argue any further.

You see Leon look over at his dad who only mouths ‘I don’t know’.

Your mom claps her hands and smiles, “Well, let’s go sign up for some group activities.”

You shrug and drop your hands to the side. Your mom grabs your stepdad’s arm and leads him over to the sign up table.

“You good?”

You turn to Leon grabbing a water out of the cooler.

“Yeah,” you wave your hand, “it’s nothing.”

His steady gaze makes you fidget and look down at your feet.

“My dad and I picked this spot the first time we had to come to these,” you clear your throat, eyes glancing back up at him, “S’all it is.”

“Ah,” Leon’s expression softens.

“Anyways, yeah, well now we have some dumb games to look forward to,” you rub your arms, “so, uh, might as well go join them.”

“Sure,” Leon drops the water bottle back into the cooler and falls into step with you.

“So you probably know a lot of people here,” he nudges your arm.

You groan in annoyance, “Too many. Bet you money that someone at some point is going to come to us and ask ‘oh aren’t you just the cutest! I remember when you were this tall!’,” you bring your hand up and hold it even with your waist.

“Stop,” Leon shakes his head, “there’s no way someone is actually going to say that phrase.”

You smile cheekily at him, “You’ll see.”

You both meet up with Leon’s dad and watch as your mom finishes signing in with a volunteer. She walks over with little wrist bands in her hand.

“One for each of you!” she hands them out, blue for your mom and stepdad and green for you and Leon.

“Great,” you deadpan.

“Honey—“

“Oh my gosh, I haven’t seen you in ages!! How have you been?”

An older woman cuts your mom off and gives her a quick hug.

“Good, good!” Your mom practically beams, “how have you been?”

“Good,” the woman laughs and then catches you out of the corner of her eye.

“Oh my goodness! Aren’t you just the cutest thing!” she grabs your hands in hers, “you’ve grown so much! I remember when you only came up to my waist!”

You watch Leon cover his mouth, but you can still see the grin on his face.

“Oh and this must be your boyfriend,” the woman coos, eyes taking in Leon next to you, “my he’s a handsome boy.”

Your eyes cut to Leon who barks out a laugh, red tinging his cheekbones.

Your mom also starts to laugh, “No, that’s Leon. That’s my new stepson. I guess I should’ve made introductions sooner.”

“Oh my mistake,” the woman blushes and laughs, “oh I see—,” her attention shifts to someone in the distance, “oh! I must go, but it’s so lovely to meet you.”

She jogs off yelling and waving at another picnic attendee.

“That wasn’t awkward at all,” your stepdad dryly states.

You laugh so hard you snort and cover your mouth, giggles still sneaking past your palm. You catch Leon’s flushed face and lose it again to a fit of giggles.

Your mom clears her throat, “Yes well let’s head over to the games area; since there’s four of us, we’ll need to pair off.”

Leon throws his arm over your shoulders, “You’ve got me now, so we’ll definitely win.”

You roll your eyes, “Mmhmm, we’ll see.”

With the arm around your shoulders, he pinches your cheek, “Have faith, little sis.”

“Sure thing, big brother,” you simper, clasping your hands to your chest, “my hero.”

He pinches your cheek again and tugs, eyes dark, “Be nice, Princess.”

“We’ll meet up at our spot after the race,” your mom remarks, shielding her eyes and looking around, “oh there’s my boss! We’ll meet up with you kids later.”

Grabbing her husband’s hand, she rushes off in the opposite direction.

You elbow Leon in the ribs and he slowly drags his hand across your back to his side.

“Quit it,” you hiss, feeling flush.

“C’mon,” Leon links your arm with his, “show me where this thing is at.”

You try to wrangle your arm back, but Leon holds on tight.

Sighing, you relax in his hold and start to walk to the middle of the venue, “It’s over here.”

The heat from Leon’s side seeps through your T-shirt making butterflies flutter in your stomach.

“You know you should be a lot nicer to your handsome boyfriend,” Leon’s voice lilts higher on the last two words as he pokes you in the side.

You squirm and smack his arm, skin tingling, feeling hot all over with embarrassment and giddiness, “Shut. Up.”

To your dismay, he just laughs at you.

“C’mon, Princess,” he leans his head down to whisper in your ear, “gotta be sweet to me or people will think my girlfriend doesn’t like me.”

Your stomach dips in excitement, but you ignore it and nudge Leon in the ribs, “You’re being annoying, Leon.”

He snickers, “Isn’t that what big brothers are for?”

You roll your eyes, “You can’t be both you dork.”

He hums and grin wickedly at you, “Says who, Princess?”

Shivering, your nipples tighten in your bra as you look away, “Says everyone.”

He only shrugs in reply, eyes glittering in the sun.

“You really think you can win?” you turn your attention back towards him, changing the subject.

“Of course,” he scoffs, blue eyes roving over your face before making eye contact, “I’m gonna win at whatever it is.”

“You trying to show off?” you tease, squeezing his arm.

He grins crookedly, “Don’t you wanna see how good your big brother is?”

Your breath hitches and you watch as Leon notices, eyes darkening.

“You wanna win for me?” you whisper, eyes hooded, warmth pooling in your abdomen.

“Yeah, wanna show off to my girl, show her how much better I am than anyone else here,” his voice is heated and deep as his heavy gaze takes in your hazy expression.

“Okay,” your lips part, tongue darting out to wet them, “then win it for me, big brother.”

You feel his body tense next to you.

“What do I get when I win?”

You tap a finger against your chin, “Hmmm, how about a kiss?”

“Yeah?” His eyes drop to your lips, “I’ll take that deal.”

Your lips curl into a smile, “Then deal.”

Walking up to the starting point of the race, there’s already a huge crowd of people.

“Greens lining up now,” a man calls through a bullhorn, “greens at the starting line!”

Leon slips his arm out of yours. He runs a thumb across the apple of your cheek.

“Wait for me at the finish line?”

You smirk at him and hold up your wrist, “But I’m also a green. So looks like you’re gonna have to outrun me if you want to win.”

You laugh at his slack jawed expression.

“Poor Leon,” you coo, patting his broad chest.

Someone bumps into you, pushing you further into Leon’s personal space.

“Ah, sorry,” a rich voice laughs behind you, “a little clumsy.”

You turn and give the surprisingly cute guy a shy smile, “It’s okay, no biggie.”

The guy smiles even wider at you, “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”

You laugh softly, “Unfortunately, I’m here every year.”

“It’s the worst isn’t it?” he chuckles, “my dad’s always dragging me to these.”

“For me, it’s my mom,” you roll your eyes, “and it’s the same thing every year which is super lame.”

“Exactly!” He laughs.

All of a sudden you feel a line of heat down your back as Leon presses his chest against you, arms draped over your shoulders as he rests his chin on your head, “What’re we talking about, sweetheart?”

The guy’s smile drops from his face as his eyes swap nervously from your face up to Leon’s.

He takes half a step back, “Well it was nice meeting you!”

You watch as he turns and darts off further into the crowd. Warmth zings through your body as Leon pulls you even tighter against him.

“You going to ignore me for some stranger?” His voice gives you goosebumps as he whispers in your ear, “how mean.”

“Leon,” you soften against him, relaxing back in his hold, “I was just being friendly.”

“Uh huh,” he rumbles, “and I’m sure he thought you were just being friendly, too.”

He lets go of you, leaving you feeling dizzy and off balanced.

“Last call for greens to the starting line!” the bullhorn rings out.

You and Leon line up with the group, shoulders brushing.

“Good luck, brat,” he pinches your side meanly making you gasp.

You go to smack his shoulder but the starting gun goes off and everyone makes a mad dash for the finish line.

Leon bolts out in front of you.

“Cheater!” You yell at his back.

He flips you off but keeps running. You jog a few steps but decide it’s a bust. Stepping out of the throng of people, you make your way down to the finish line, but now on the outside of the run. Once down at the finish line, you stand on your tiptoes looking for Leon’s distinctive hair. A pair of arms wrap around your waist and twirl you around.

You squeal and smack at the forearms wrapped around you. You hear Leon laugh in your ear as he sets you back down.

“Gotcha, princess.”

“Fuck off,” you shove at his chest even though he doesn’t budge.

He grins at you, “No can do, you owe me a prize.”

He dangles a cheap plastic medallion with ‘1st Place’ stamped in wonky lettering in front of your face.

You laugh, taking the medal from his hand, “No way!”

“Way,” he crowds into your personal space, “so?”

“I guess I have to,” you try to act serious, but the smile won’t leave your face.

You grab the collar of his shirt and tug him down closer to you while you push up on your tippy toes; you press a soft kiss at the corner of his mouth, lips barely grazing his.

You settle back on flat feet and let go of his shirt, “Congratulations.”

He slips his fingers through the belt loops of your shorts and yanks you forward; he holds you against him as he licks into your mouth, tongue hot as it slips past your lips. You whine and sag against his broad chest as he practically tongue fucks you in front of all these strangers.

Pulling away, you gasp in a quick breath, “What’re you doing? What if our parents see?”

Your eyes dart around nervously, but there’s no denying the heat building between your thighs. He smirks down at you, making your belly swoop in excitement.

He noses along your hairline until his lips press against your ear, “Kissing my little sister, what else? And don’t worry they’re nowhere around, I looked.”

You bite your lip to stop the moan bubbling out of your throat, but Leon doesn’t stop there.

“So funny none of these people know, they just think you could be my cute little girlfriend,” he chuckles, tongue dipping in your ear making you shiver against him, “haven’t got a clue that I’m your big brother.”

You moan at that, softly where only he can hear it. He hums and goes to dip his head down, but jerks back from you like he’s been shocked.

“It took forever for us to find you!”

Leon gives his dad a strained smile, “Yeah it’s pretty crowded huh.”

You scrub your hands across your face and turn on shaky legs to face your mom, giving her a quick smile and a wave.

She nods, “One of our bigger turnouts,” then she sees the glint of yellow in Leon’s hand and gasps excitedly, “did you win?!”

“Oh,” Leon rubs the back of his neck, “uh yeah, I did.”

“He was so good,” you add slyly, grinning at Leon, “right, big brother?”

He rolls his eyes at you, but you see a blush dusting the bridge of his nose.

“Let’s go eat,” your mom suggests, “I’m starving.”

She links arms with you and starts to talk about the new boss she just met while your stepdad and Leon trail behind, softly conversing with each other.

Before you know it, the minutes bleed into hours as the afternoon drips by like slowly melting ice cream. Your mom and stepdad leave to go mingle, sticking you and Leon with cleaning up by yourselves.

Afterwards, sitting on the picnic blanket, you wrap your arms around your legs and prop your chin on your knees. You watch as your mom and stepdad get pulled into yet another conversation with her coworkers.

Leon’s knee bumps into yours, “Stop being so pouty.”

You tilt your head to the side to look at where he’s lounging back on his elbows next to you.

“I’m not pouting,” you say, although you know you most definitely are.

“Suuure,” he snarks at you.

You sigh, “It’s just.. well, she drags me to these things every year.”

He raises an eyebrow at you, “Okay?”

“It just sucks. She brings me along and then I’m left here by myself while she talks it up with everyone. It wasn’t so bad when dad—“

You cut yourself off, feeling embarrassed.

You raise back up into a sitting position and cross your legs, “Never mind.”

He raises up to sit next to you, bumping your shoulders together, “No, c’mon tell me. I wanna hear.”

You pick at the loose thread on your shorts, “Well when dad was here it wasn’t so bad cause we’d goof off and make it fun. We’d pick out people and invent some silly job for them or what ludicrous name they could have. It just—“

You trail off feeling tears prick your eyes.

“It didn’t suck,” he murmurs, reaching out and holding your hand, “sorry for bringing it up.”

You huff a small laugh, “No, it’s— you didn’t do anything. I just hate being here. Last year it was just us two, so essentially just me.”

Glancing around and noticing no one’s even near you two, Leon squeezes your hand.

“Hey,” he noses your hairline and presses a kiss on your ear then your cheek, “I’m here, okay?”

“I know,” you give him a shy smile paired with watery eyes, “you’ve actually made today a lot of fun, so thank you.”

“Any time,” he presses a quick kiss on your mouth before pulling away.

Your wide eyes look around as you whisper, “Leon!”

“What?” He grins, “it’s just us.”

“This time!” You whisper loudly, “you can’t just keep kissing me in public, especiallywhen our parents are nearby!”

“So you’re saying I can kiss you in public when they’re not?” His grin widens.

You gaze at him, mouth parted in disbelief, “You—“

“Kids!” your mom calls out cheerily, waving as she walks up.

You turn to face her, Leon slipping his hand out of yours.

“It’s starting to get late and some of us are going to stick around to help clean up,” she smiles at you two, “so you can head on home.”

You notice that the sun has started to set. Dark looking storm clouds are rolling in over the horizon.

“Oh, I didn’t realize it was that late,” you stand up and brush off your shorts.

Your mom pulls you in for a quick hug, “Thank you for staying today. It means a lot.”

You shrug awkwardly, “No problem, mom.”

She lets go of you and turns a stern gaze to Leon who’s now standing next to you, “Drive safe, young man.”

He gives her a mock salute, “Will do, ma’am.”

She smiles at him and pats his cheek, “Okay, I’ll see you guys at home.”

And with that, your mom spins around and walks off to re join her husband.

“You ready then?”

You glance up at Leon, “More than.”

On the drive home, the storm clouds finally break and heavy rain comes pelting down. The windshield wipers seem to be working double time, but it still makes it hard for Leon to see the road.

“About a half hour away,” Leon nods to the GPS, “I’m gonna pull over into this park until it lets up some.”

“Okay,” you easily agree with a shrug, “you’re driving.”

He pulls into the empty lot; the small park has an even smaller parking lot to match. Leon shuts the car off and the sound of rain drumming against the roof lends itself to a soothing atmosphere.

“I love the rain,” you sigh, gazing out the window.

“Mm it’s nice,” Leon hums.

He looks over at you until you finally catch his gaze.

He grins lazily at you, “C’mere.”

You smile confusedly, “What?”

He pats his lap, “Come sit.”

A rush of heat shoots through your body. You carefully shift until you can climb over the center console and onto Leon’s lap. Your back brushes against the steering wheel and your legs are folded on either side of his bulky thighs.

His warm hands settle on your hips, gripping them to pull you snug up against his chest.

“There we go,” his whisper falls into the space between your lips.

Feeling shy, you tuck your face into his neck.

“Thank you for today, for being nicer than usual,” you press a soft kiss into his skin.

“It’s no problem,” he pokes your side making you gasp and sit up.

“Still,” you run your hands through his hair, “thank you, Leon.”

He groans and leans his head back against the headrest. You scratch along his scalp and his eyes slip shut.

“Mmm gonna have to be nicer if this is what it gets me,” he sighs out.

You laugh softly and continue to run your hands through his hair. A comfortable silence only broken by the sound of rain fills the quiet. Thunder rolls in the distance and the rain starts to come down even harder.

Leon’s voice rumbles in his chest, “You ever made out in a car, Princess?”

Flustered, you bring your hands down to drape around his neck, “No.”

“Good,” he smirks, “I like being your first for things.”

“Leon,” you squirm in embarrassment.

He holds your hips still, “Behave. You keep moving like that and it’s gonna be more than making out.”

“Yeah,” your eyes drop to his lips, “is that a promise big brother?”

His lips thin, a mean look coming over his face, “Don’t be a brat.”

You lick your lips and smile sweetly at him.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, big brother.”

His hand comes up to your jaw and he brings your mouths together in a messy kiss.

“Such a fucking tease,” he groans into your mouth.

“Leon,” you mewl.

He fucks his tongue in and out of your mouth, spit dripping down your chin making your cunt throb as you squirm and rock in his lap. His hands help your hips pick up a rhythm that has you panting and moaning in your kisses.

“So sweet,” he pulls away, a string of saliva connecting your lips.

He rubs his thumb over your bottom lip, breaking the strand and smearing spit all over your mouth, “Sweet little sister.”

Your eyes flutter as slick fills your panties, making the slow grind on your clit wet and slippery.

“Leon,” you whimper, lips brushing against his, “my panties are sticking to me.”

“Fuck, really?” he bites your bottom lip harshly, sucking on it before letting go with a small pop, “big brother making your little pussy cry, princess?”

“Uh huh,” you grab one of his hands and guide it to slip under the leg of your shorts.

His fingers stroke your clit on the outside of your soaked panties.

“Shit,” he hisses, fingers feeling around the flimsy fabric barely covering your aching cunt.

“So wet,” he presses his face into your neck, groaning, “haven’t even touched you yet and you’re fucking dripping.”

Your hand dips between your bodies to roughly stroke him through his jeans. You feel his cock kick and throb against the palm of your hand.

“Get in the backseat, baby,” he pulls his hand away from your wet heat and smacks your ass.

Leon’s dark eyes watch you clamber over the console and into the backseat. He follows you immediately and maneuvers you both until he’s seated against the door with you straddling his lap. The windows in the front are completely fogged while the ones in the backseat slowly catch up.

“God, been wanting you all day princess,” he pulls you into a heated kiss, “driving me crazy in these fucking shorts.”

“Yeah?” you whimper into his mouth.

“Mmm, yeah could see the bruises I left on your thighs reminding me of how sweet your hot little cunt tastes,” he licks into your panting mouth, lips slick with spit, “couldn’t even touch you how I wanted.”

“Leon!” you roll your hips down onto the outline of his hard cock, “how’d you want to touch me?”

He hisses, “Like I’m doing right now, Princess. Random assholes staring at you, couldn’t even show’em what’s mine.”

He growls and bucks his hips up, pressing just right against your clit. He kisses the moan out of your mouth.

“M yours, Leon,” you whine when he pulls his mouth away to nip and suck at your neck.

“Yeah you are,” he sucks a bruise into your neck, “my pretty little sister, right?”

You claw at his shoulders, pressing your throat harder into his teeth, “Yeah, yeah, ‘m your little sister, no one else’s.”

“Fuck,” he moans, a raspy growl that goes straight to your throbbing cunt, “mmm or maybe you’re my sweet little girlfriend that I’m going to fuck in the backseat, huh?”

“Leon!” you keen, grinding down even harder on the outline of his cock, clit throbbingin your panties, “want that, want it so much.”

He groans, tongue slipping into your mouth, “Gonna fuck my girlfriend’s pretty pussy til she’s creaming my cock, right?”

You nod your head quickly, “Yes, yes, please.”

“Show me your tits, baby. Wanna suck on those nipples and get this pussy nice and wet,” he pulls away, blown pupils holding your gaze.

“Leon,” you gasp, yanking your shirt up over your head.

Before you can undo your bra, he tugs the cups down until your breasts are spilling out, nipples tightening under his gaze.

“Damn,” he whispers, “so fucking hot.”

He grabs your hips to slowly grind his dick into the damp heat of your pussy. His mouth latches onto a nipple and he eagerly suckles the hard bud.

“Sensitive,” you mewl, hands moving from his shoulders to tangle in his hair.

He ignores you and continues to suckle and teasingly bite your hard bud before switching to the other one. He continues to drift back and forth, teasing and sucking your nipples until they’re sore and puffy. His eyes slip closed with a moan when you tug his hair harder.

“Big brother,” you whine, “you’re sucking too hard.”

He growls but pulls back from your chest, “So spoiled.”

You pout and press your hips down harder making him moan, “But you like spoiling me.”

“Yeah I do, little brat,” he shifts to pull his own shirt off and drop it on the floorboard.

You whimper and drag your hands from his shoulders, down his broad chest, to his abs.

“You’re so hot, Leon,” you pant, nails scratching his skin making his abs flex, “you make me so wet.”

“Can’t just say that shit,” he grits out, grabbing your hands in his, eyes dark and hungry.

“But it’s true,” you whisper biting your lip, eyes big.

He reaches between you and thumbs open the button on his jeans.

“Take those fucking shorts off before I do,” his voice rasps, helping you raise your hips.

As soon as the material of your shorts and panties are shoved down your thighs, he presses two fingers into your soaking wet pussy.

“God damn, baby,” he watches as slick drips down his wrist, “you’re so wet for me.”

“Need you,” you whimper, “please.”

“I got you,” he tugs his own jeans and underwear down; his hard dick bounces up against your thigh smearing a sticky trail of precum.

“Easy, baby,” he grabs the base of his cock and slaps your pussy, “ready to sit on my dick?”

“Yeah,” you pant, lifting yourself up so he can glide the head of his cock against your swollen clit to dip inside your slick hole.

“Please, Leon.”

“Please, what?”

You whine, “Please big brother, want you to put it in.”

He chuckles meanly, “Put what in Princess?”

Your pussy clenches around nothing, slick dripping down onto Leon’s cock just teasing at your hole.

“Please, big brother I need your cock in my pussy,” you whimper, hands scratching at his chest, “want you in my needy princess pussy.”

“Fuck, you play dirty, sweetheart,” he groans sinking the first couple of inches into your wet heat, “can’t say no to that now can I.”

He grabs your hips stilling your movement; he’s only halfway in your pussy and it’s making you desperate.

“Leon,” your eyes water, “please, please I need it. Feel so empty,” whimpering, you drag your lips across his jaw, “don’t you wanna fuck your girlfriend’s wet pussy?”

“Fuck,” he hisses, slowly easing you down, his cock sliding deeper but still not bottoming out.

“Gotta savor this one princess, s’gonna be a slow fuck for your little cunt.”

Your thighs spasm as you hiccup a moan, tears filling your eyes.

“But Leon—“

“Uh uh,” he clicks his tongue, eyes dark and mean, “big brother knows what’s best.”

Your cunt flutters around his cock making you both moan. Even though he’s only teasing the first few inches of his cock in and out of your pussy, it sounds wet and dirty.

“Fuck me,” he huffs a laugh, “you’re leaking so much it’s dripping down my balls. You’re gonna get the family car all dirty, baby.”

Your back arches as you press your body weight down; you feel Leon sink further into your cunt before his hands grip your hips like a vice.

“What did I say? Do I need to spank your slutty cunt? To make sure you’re listening to me?”

You whimper, “M-maybe.”

“Oh?” he grins, “do I need to spank that needy pussy and show her who’s in charge?”

Your eyes slip shut as you nod, “Yeah, yeah, big brother needs to spank my pussy.”

He growls and pulls you up off of his cock; you whine and writhe your hips but he sets you back down in his lap, pussy lips sandwiching his dick.

A faint buzzing comes from Leon’s phone tucked into the center console.

You rock your hips forward and shiver as your clit rubs against his cock in a slippery drag of friction.

“None of that,” he smacks your thigh, pulling your dazed expression up to meet his heated gaze, “you ready?”

“Yes,” you grab his hand and push it against your soaked cunt, “spank my princess pussy; she needs big brother to really give it to her.”

“Fuck,” he bites out, “fucking slut.”

He cups the wet heat of your pussy then brings his hand back and smacks upward, covering your mound and swollen clit with his palm.

You whine high in your throat, hands reaching behind you to hold onto his thighs for purchase.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, “be good and let me spank you.”

“Uh huh,” you lean back onto your hands, arching your hips to put your pussy more on display, “need my boyfriend to really give my naughty pussy a spanking.”

“God damn,” he clenches his eyes shut a moment, then looks back down at your puffy clit and drippy cunt.

“Got a slutty fucking girlfriend don’t I,” his voice rasps, smacking your pussy again and again and again, “or should I say slutty little sister, just letting her brother play with her pussy whenever he wants.”

The sharp stings fade into a low heat with every slap, making your clit throb and hole clench on nothing. Your hips jump up into each slap, thighs trembling.

“Hold still,” his voice darkens, “and let me spank your slutty cunt.”

“‘M not slutty,” you gasp out, “m just needy.”

“Is that right?” he mocks, dragging his middle and index finger through your slick before circling your sore clit.

“I guess it can’t be helped,” he sighs, fingers dipping into your hole, “big brother will have to fill up this wet and sloppy cunt.”

“Please,” you arch down onto his fingers, “Leon, big brother, I need it.”

He pulls his fingers away and lines his cock up with your wet clenching hole. He presses in with a low groan as you rock your hips down until he bottoms out completely. You wince at how deep he is inside of you; the fat tip pressing against your cervix making you rock forward, enjoying the ache deep in your cunt.

“So deep,” you pant, nails digging into his forearms, “hurts.”

“It does?” He coos all fake sympathy, “guess I should pull out then.”

“Nooo,” you clench down tightly.

“No?” he grinds his cock upward making your eyes roll back from the pain blooming into pleasure as your hips jump.

“If it’s too deep I need to pull out,” he kisses your cheek, “don’t want to hurt my sweetbaby sister.”

You whimper as he slips back just a little and then presses hard into your fluttering walls. His tip kisses the opening of your cervix making you squeal in pain, but he holds your hips down making you take it. His thumb moves to brush against your clit in soft, teasing circles.

“Hurts, princess?” he licks the tears dripping down your face, “is it too much? Does your boyfriend’s cock stretch you out too far?”

Nonsensical sounds come from your lips, tongue lying heavy and useless in your mouth. He keeps grinding too deep and touching your clit with delicate fingers, making wires cross in your brain until you feel nothing but white hot pleasure overtaking your body.

“Are you fucking cumming?” he whispers in awe, feeling your walls milk his cock as slick drips out of your spasming hole.

“Fucking hell,” he slowly eases you back, his cock still inside your pussy just not as deep as before.

“Leon,” you slur, eyes hazy, “s’good.”

He laughs, “Sure seems like it, baby. Want to just sit on my dick, keep me nice and warm for awhile? Til you’re ready to go again?”

You hum a sound of agreement, “Sounds nice.”

He groans, “Yeah it does.”

He helps you shift your hips so his cock isn’t pressing into you too deeply and he brings your mouth in for a sloppy kiss.

“Love kissing you,” he coaxes you to open your mouth wider, “always so eager.”

You feel giggly and warm, “Love kissing you too, Leon.”

He sighs in your mouth, tongues slowly sliding together between your lips. His kisses turn slower, sweeter— tongue licking into your mouth, tasting you as deep as possible. You feel his cock kick and throb in your sensitive cunt. Shifting, you press yourself down a little more firmly, pussy walls gripping his cock tightly.

A faint buzzing comes from the floorboard where your shorts were tossed. Leon pulls you further into his chest, rolling his hips up into your soaked pussy. Buzzing happens again but this time from the center console; you both ignore it as Leon presses the fat tip of his dick and grinds along the spongy spot in your cunt that drives you crazy.

He pulls away from your sloppy kissing, pupils so big his eyes look black. Both phones are now buzzing with calls.

“s’that the spot, sweetheart?” He grinds his dick deeper in your squelching cunt.

“Leon,” you keen, hands tugging his hair, “it’s so good, you feel so good inside me.”

He growls, hips thrusting up into you harder, faster.

“God, princess, got the best fucking pussy,” he bites your jaw, “little cunt made for my cock.”

His fingers tease across your wet, swollen clit.

“Yeah, yeah, please,” you pull your hips and drop them back down, “so good, big brother.”

He presses the back of his head against the car door’s fogged up window, eyes hooded as he watches you bounce on his dick. He keeps his fingers on your clit, stroking and pinching, making you buck your hips into the feeling.

He watches as a frown forms on your brows, your hips slowing down.

“Leon,” embarrassment colors your voice, “we have to stop, I-I gotta pee.”

He grins wolfishly, “You ever squirted before, sweetheart?”

“N-no,” you frown, hands pressing against his abs trying to slow his thrusts up into your dripping pussy but he keeps hammering up into you, “s-stop or I’m gonna—“

“S’fine,” he soothes, grinding his dick in the same spot, “want you to squirt on my dick, baby.”

“I c-can’t,” your lip quivers, tears pricking your eyes.

“Sure you can, Princess,” his fingers rub your clit more firmly, “c’mon want you to soak the backseats.”

He grins wickedly, “Our parents will never have t’know.”

Another harsh grind against the spongy spot in your cunt has you locking up, your back arching as your orgasm overtakes your body.

“Leon!” a gasping wail leaves you as you feel slick gush from your pussy, soaking your thighs and Leon.

“Fuck, fuck!” Leon grabs your hips and holds you flush with him as he cums inside your still clenching pussy.

You feel the heat as rope after rope of sticky cum fills your spasming cunt. Slowly, you settle back on Leon’s thighs, his dick plugging up your cunt keeping most of his cum inside.

His hands are still gripping your hips tightly, making your walls pulse, softly milking him still.

“Oh,” you exhale, and pull your nails away from where you dug them into his chest, leaving nine bloody crescents to frame his pecs.

“S’okay, sweetheart,” he grins at you, all sweetness and soft eyes, “got nothing to complain about.”

“Ah,” you squirm feeling embarrassed, “that was..”

“Hot,” he rubs his thumb over the apple of your cheek, “gonna need a repeat, princess. See if next time I can get you to squirt on my fingers.”

“Leon,” you pout, body feeling hot.

A loud consistent buzz breaks through the fog in your brain.

“That’s been going off for awhile now,” you bite your lip.

Leon raises up, wrapping his arms around your back to keep you seated on his cock. He leans up further and fumbles around the center console til he pulls back holding his phone.

He accepts the call and puts it on speakerphone, “Hey Pops.”

“Where the hell are you?! Are you okay?”

Leon ducks his head, even though his dad can’t see it, “Uh yeah, the roads got bad so we pulled over. Sorry my phone was on silent so I didn’t realize you were calling.”

A pause from his dad before he sighs, “Well as long as you’re okay. Just next time let someone know, okay?”

“Will do, Pops. Sorry to worry you.”

“Let’s try not to do it again, son,” his dad chuckles, “drive safe.”

“I will.”

And with that the call ends, basking you two in silence except for the light drizzle of rain hitting the car.

Leon jostles you again making you gasp as his half hard cock slips out a few inches.

“Shit,” he hisses, “let me—“

He grabs his t-shirt off the floorboard and slips it underneath you as he pulls completely out. You whimper as his cum drips from your sore cunt.

“Sexy,” he murmurs eyes going dark again, running his fingers through your slick folds to tease at your hole.

“Leon,” you whisper, grabbing his wrist, “shouldn’t we go home before we worry them more?”

With his free hand, he easily moves your hand from his wrist and slots your fingers together. His other fingers dip into your cum filled hole but don’t go any further.

He brings up the hand he’s holding and kisses your knuckles, “One more round couldn’t hurt, princess.”

A beam of headlights cross the car’s interior as another vehicle pulls into the parking lot.

You squeak and duck your face down into Leon’s neck, who chuckles and pulls you down to lay on top of him in the backseat.

“What’re we going to do?” You whisper scream at him, tilting your head up, eyes wide and anxious.

He gives a half hearted shrug underneath you and spreads your legs further to slide his cock between your thighs. You feel it stiffening against you cunt, dragging cum and slick all over your pussy lips.

“About to fill you up again, baby,” he kisses your ear, “gotta keep quiet though, don’t want them hearing you getting your little princess pussy fucked by your big brother.”

You whine, hips grinding down on his dick.

“They wouldn’t even know,” you whisper hotly, “like you said earlier, probably just think I’m your girlfriend.”

“Mmm they might when I make you scream big brother over and over again,” he laughs meanly, pinching your ass making you buck into his hips.

He pulls one of your legs up higher and slips his cock into your pussy; it’s an easy slide for his fat cock at this point, bottoming out quickly.

You whine into his shoulder, eyes fluttering from feeling sore and used.

“There we go,” he coos mockingly, “just let me fill up that slutty little pussy, right baby sis?”

“Uh huh,” you drool into his skin, teeth nipping to muffle any sounds you’re making, “fill me up so good.”

He’s slowly grinding his cock in you, pelvic bone catching your clit with every circle of his hips. Your pussy is so sensitive, you feel yourself edging closer and closer to an orgasm.

“Leon,” you sigh, cunt milking his cock as he slowly fucks in and out of your pussy, “you feel so good.”

He laughs at you, “Mmm I know, your tight hot pussy hasn’t let go of me since I slipped my dick in.”

You whine, walls fluttering at his words, “Can’t help it. You’re too big.”

He grips your ass in both hands, squeezing til the fat dimples between his fingers, “Nah you just got a little pussy. A cute little pussy that matches my cute little sister.”

You lay against him, mouthing at his shoulder and moaning as he keeps sliding in and out of your clenching hole. Slick is dripping out of your cunt and all over his cock, sliding down to coat his balls and thighs.

“This is the juiciest fucking pussy,” he growls in your ear, cunt squelching on every slow push and pull of his dick inside you, “do you hear how wet you are? God so fucking hot.”

“Mmm,” you slur, eyes lidded, “so stretched out, big brother.”

He groans, hips humping up into you for a few thrusts before he slows down again.

“Leon,” you whisper against his shoulder, “m gonna cum.”

“So soon?” his voice is low and deep, making goosebumps raise across your skin, “feeling that good, Princess?”

“Yeah,” you mewl.

“Say who’s making you feel so good, baby,” he growls, smacking your ass.

You roll your hips down harder at the sting and pant, “Big brother. Big brother fucks my little pussy so good.”

“Again.”

Your drooling, eyes dazed as you moan, “Big brother makes my little Princess pussy feel so good.”

“Good girl,” he condescends, “that’s right, no one fucks this pussy as good as me. In fact no one better fuck this pussy except me, right?”

“Uh huh, no one,” you shudder, “all yours.”

“That’s right. My little sister’s pussy is all mine,” he grunts, rocking you together faster, “gonna cum in you again, keep your little pussy full.”

“Need it,” your nails dig into his biceps, “fill me up, big brother.”

“Yeah, you love me breeding this cute pussy,” he grinds up into your clenching heat, “girlfriend’s got the neediest fucking cunt.”

A high reedy cry leaves your throat, pussy walls eagerly pulsing around his dick, “Yeah, yeah I do. Big brother!”

His hands come down to squeeze your ass, the fat dimpling between his fingers. He fucks into your pussy with short deep thrusts.

“Mm cumming,” your toes curl with the mounting pleasure ramping up in your body, “Le—“

You muffle your scream by biting down into Leon’s shoulder hard. Your orgasm makes the muscles in your thighs jump, hips humping down on Leon’s cock. Distantly, you feel him press up into your pussy and fill you with hot, sticky cum all over again.

Dizzy, you slump down onto Leon’s heaving chest.

You feel him run his hands up your back to pet through your hair. You nuzzle further into his chest with a hum.

“S’nice,” you whisper into his skin.

“Mmm,” he pets down your side before dragging fingertips across your hips, “think you’re gonna bruise, sweetheart.”

You push yourself up from his chest, eyes looking out the windows; seeing the other car is gone, you raise completely up.

“You will too,” you point out, fingers skating across the spots you bit and crescent marks from your nails.

He smirks, “Gonna get a lot of guys asking me who I fucked so good.”

“Leon,” you smack his arm, “so mean.”

He chuckles and smooths his hands down your thighs, “Yeah but you like it.”

Shyly your gaze drops to his mouth, “Yeah, I do.”

“As much as I’d love to keep you here all night, we probably should head back home,” he pats your hips.

Grabbing his shirt from before he slips it between your bodies.

“Up, princess,” he helps you raise your hips and presses his shirt against your puffy cunt.

“I’ll never get tired of that,” he groans, shifting his gaze from your leaking pussy back up to your face, “need you to get dressed before I change my mind.”

Feeling a swirl of emotions, elated-aroused-fond, you nod your head and grab your panties and shorts. You slip them on after wiping down as well as you can.

You frown at the shirt in your hand, and look at Leon who’s got his jeans back on and scratching at his head with a yawn.

“What shirt are you gonna wear?”

He shrugs, “I’ll just say it got wet and I didn’t want the seat to get wet so I took it off.”

“Oh,” you fold it inside out, keeping the mess hidden, “well hopefully that works.”

Leon helps you climb back into the passenger seat; he follows and slides into the driver’s side. Cranking the car, he cuts on the defrost to help with the fogged up windows.

You two sit in a comfortable silence and watch the rain mist against the windshield.

“I had fun today,” you whisper, a secret just between you two.

He grabs your hand and kisses the back, “I did too.”

#stepbro!leon s kennedy x fem!reader #stepbro leon s kennedy/you #stepbro!leon s kennedy #stepcest #leon s kennedy x you #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy x reader smut #leon s kennedy smut #resident evil smut #leon s kennedy x fem!reader #fem!reader #lipglossanon #jealous stepbro leon

657 notes · View notes

lazycats-stuff · 1 year

Note

hi again

could i request batfam x Damian twin brother.

like we know damian stopped killing but what if batbro secretly does old league habits that end up injuring themselves but lie when asked.

he holds on to resentment towards towards the bats and wants to go back to where he feels safest.

part of the reason he stays via because they can’t think about not seeing damien.

but batfam pushes them fo his limits

(i know this doesn’t make sense sorry )

Okay, I understand the general idea of the ask so don't worry. This is an interesting idea though.

Warnings: mentions of violence, self destructing habits, mentions of killings, mentions of the League, mentions of skipping meals, swearing

(C/D) = code name for (Y/N)

Summary: (Y/N) and Damian are not in the League anymore, but (Y/N) can't get rid of the habits installed in him.

Damian knew something was wrong with his brother. The fact that they were twins made it easier to read him. They were with Bruce for a while and they didn't kill anyone, but the habits they had from the League couldn't be erased. You could hide them, but it would be better to break them.

Damian was better at breaking his habits then his brother.

(Y/N) couldn't shake off his habits. And he didn't want to. He wanted to stay at the League, by his mother's and grandfather's side. But then again, he couldn't bare to not see Damian anymore.

He is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

He tried to keep Damian at bay, not wanting to worry him. Worry is a sign of weakness. And Damian would definitely be on his case if he found out that he still had the habits from the League.

And that's why (Y/N) was in this situation. They were on patrol, hunting down a criminal. He knew not to kill the criminal, but failure was off the table. He jumped from the edge off the roof, ready to tackle him. Even though Bruce made it clear that you can fail sometimes, (Y/N) knew he wouldn't fail.

But the villain ducked, making (Y/N) fall down. He heard a crack from his right side. He knew his ribs were broken. He took a deep breath, before getting up. He had to reset them when he got back.

" (C/D), are you okay? " Batman asked, worry evident in his voice.

" I am, but he got away. " (Y/N) grumbled, clearly agitated.

" It's okay, we will get him. He can't get far. Hood and Red Robin will get him. Are you sure you are okay? Your breathing sounds strained. "

" I'm fine. " (Y/N) barked, moving back to go after the guy.

Bruce shared a glance with Damian. Damian nodded. Something happened to (Y/N). What exactly? Damian will find out. He was always protective of his brother, probably more then he should be.

But not on patrol. Back at the manor.

" (Y/N), what happened to you? " Damian asked his brother, leaning on the doorway.

" What do you mean? " (Y/N) asked, moving the covers back. He needs to lay down.

" Something happened to you on patrol? What was it? "

(Y/N) sighed, sitting down.

" Nothing. Stop being so nosy. "

Damian took a deep breath. He knew something was wrong, everyone could tell something was wrong. Even Red Hood, the one person who can't really tolerate them both, knows something is wrong.

" Something happened on patrol! What happened! " Damian yelled, surprising (Y/N). Even Bruce from another room heard him. He raised his eyebrows at the yell. What was happening?

(Y/N) stood up, mad at Damian. He hated how noisy he was and how he thought he had a right to know everything.

" Nothing happened! Why do you have to know everything?! " (Y/N) yelled back, sitting up from the anger. But that was a big mistake. The pain shoot up, despite him resetting the ribs back and wrapping them.

Damian took notice. He realized what had happened. Why was his brother like this?

" (Y/N), we are not back at the League. You don't have to push yourself that much. "

(Y/N) sighed, clearly ticked off. Damian didn't want to move, but the look in (Y/N)'s eyes made him reconsider.

" I wasn't hurt! Now let me be. "

(Y/N) slammed the door when Damian was in the hall and went to bed. He muttered curses as he lied down. Why was he on his case?

Damian huffed outside, going back to his room. Bruce wanted to ask him what happened, but Damian walked straight passed him. Bruce looked at (Y/N)'s door. Something is happening. He didn't like it in the slightest.

(Y/N) has been in a sour mood the following morning. The boys didn't talk to him the next morning. All of them stayed out of his way, but Bruce and Damian knew they couldn't stay out of his way forever. Damian couldn't see his brother in pain and Bruce couldn't see his son in pain.

Even as they went to school, (Y/N) was still cranky. Damian didn't talk to him for the remainder of the day, but he was going to talk to him before patrol.

It was bound to go well. Famous last words.

Bruce and Damian knew it had to be done.

" (Y/N)? Can we talk before we go on patrol? " Damian asked (Y/N).

The others looked in their direction, clearly knowing that shit will go down. They moved out of the general area, moving closer to the Batmobile.

(Y/N) didn't say anything, he simply walked over to the duo. It's time. The other 3 looked at one another. Maybe they should leave the cave and run.

" What happened last night on patrol? " Bruce asked (Y/N), trying not to sound like he was trying to pry the information out.

" Nothing happened. Did Damian say something? " (Y/N) asked, not sparing Damian a glance.

" No. I noticed that something is bothering you and... I don't think you left the League completely. "

(Y/N) stayed silent. Damn.

" I will never be able to leave the League completely. You and Damian know that. And nothing is bothering me. "

" I know that Ra's and Talia push for success and I know that to them, failure is not the option, but you don't have to hurt yourself to achieve it. " Bruce said.

" You don't know anything Bruce. Really. "

" Is that why you didn't eat anything yesterday? " Damian asked, knowing the punishment for failing the mission.

(Y/N) froze. He had a half a mind to not lunge at the bastard. Bruce slowly turned to look back at (Y/N). No.

" (Y/N)... Why are are you doing this to yourself? "

(Y/N) sighed, shaking his head.

" I never wanted to leave the league. I felt safe there. This place is prison to me. "

Bruce felt something breaking inside. (Y/N) never said anything about his feelings, but how would he? He was thought that feelings are a weakness.

" Why did you stay here? " Damian asked.

" I'm done with this conversation. " (Y/N) said, shaking his head, quickly walking away.

" (Y/N)! " Bruce called back, clearly done with the easy approach. Time to get the answers the hard away.

" No! You don't know everything Bruce! I never wanted to live here! I only stayed here because of Damian! And you! " Now he turned to yell at Damian. " You take his side! "

" It's because I'm worried about you! I care about you, you are my brother! " Damian yelled back.

" I can't let you go on patrol until we sort this problem out. You are officially benched. " Bruce said.

" You can shove it up your ass. I quit. " (Y/N) said, throwing his mask down.

Damian watched in shock as his brother went upstairs. The cave was enveloped in silence. Nobody said anything as they got ready for patrol. They need to help (Y/N).

#dc x male reader #dc comics #x male reader #batfamily #batkids #batman x male reader #bruce wayne x male reader #damian x male reader

472 notes · View notes

twoidiotwriters1 · 2 years

Note

omg hi do you still write gilbert blythe x readers? If so i would like to request a makeout scene or 🍒 or maybe both? Both is better

A/N: Okay so our taglist may be out of date so if anyone doesn’t want to be tagged in Anne’s writings and/or smut please send us an ask! (be specific about what you want cause we get confused easily)

Warnings: 18+ and obvisly this is not AWAE’s version of Gilboy -Danny

Twoidiots Masterlist

Warmth —(Gilbert Blythe xF!Reader)

A tough winter had fallen upon Avonlea that year, the snow would pile against the windows stopping any kind of light to enter anyone’s home, and even if they’d managed to shovel it out of the way, there was no sunlight to reward them for their tough efforts.

However, this weather benefited a few who, in love and with time to spare, needed little excuses to waste their mornings in bed.

Gilbert and you had woken up to a gloomy morning, but instead of letting it ruin your mood, you took it as an excuse to wrap your arms around your lover and nuzzle your face against his chest.

“It’s so cold,” you muttered against him, “let’s stay in bed all day...”

“I have patients, dear...”

“Oh, like anyone would leave their homes just so you could take a look at their runny noses,” you grumbled.

“What if they have an emergency?”

“We just installed the phone,” you retorted stubbornly, “if they need you desperately, they’ll know where to find you.”

“Y/N...”

“Have some pity, Gilbert boy,” you poked his ribs, “your poor wife is begging you to stay and keep her warm. What if you leave her all alone and she ends up with the worst cold of her life?”

Gilbert chuckled. “Well, we can’t have that, can we?”

“Indeed,” you continued. “Did you know there’s an old proverb that goes ‘shoemakers' children go barefoot and doctors' wives die young’?”

“Really?” He frowned. “That’s certainly not what I want for us.”

“And that’s precisely why you’ll stay right here, cuddling your wife until she’s all warm and sleepy again.”

Gilbert tilted your chin up so you would look at him. “I guess I can take one day off.”

You moved closer and kissed him lightly, his hand moved from your chin to the side of your neck and deepened the kiss. A little sigh escaped your lips and your fingers went to his curls, holding onto them, gently at first, and then a bit more desperate.

“I’ve missed you,” you mumbled against him.

“I’m right here,” he replied, frowning a little.

“Today, yes, but you’ve been visiting your patients every day from dusk to dawn,” you moved away and cupped his cheek, “and I’m so proud but... the house feels so lonely when I come back from my errands and you’re not here.”

Gilbert’s eyes softened. “I didn’t know you felt that way, I always thought you were quite... self-sufficient.”

“Oh, I am,” you frowned, “that doesn’t mean I don’t love and long for my husband’s attentions.”

“You long?” He adopted a teasing tone. “Poor thing...” he kissed your forehead, “so abandoned...” then your nose, “with so much love to give...”

His lips traveled to your neck and left a trail of kisses down your throat, his teeth bore into the curve of your shoulder, causing you to gasp.

“I’ve missed you too...” he whispered against your skin, “my sweet wife...”

“Please...” you whined, keeping his head in place.

“Yes, dear?” He kissed your shoulder. “What do you need?”

“You... just you.”

“But how do you want me?”

“However you decide, just don’t stop,” you concluded, pulling him back to your lips.

Gilbert quickly got to work, he pushed your camisole up and snuck a hand between your bodies, cupping your center.

“You’re warm,” he lowered his face and breathed in your scent. “Are my hands too cold?”

“N-no,” you shifted in your place to give him better access, “you’re perfect.”

“You’re perfect,” he retorted, “so soft...” his hand slowly traveled up and cupped one of your breasts, “so easy to arouse...”

“Gilbert,” you sighed.

“I know,” he cooed, “I’m getting there.”

His lips left your neck and moved down, kissing and sucking the soft skin on your other breast. His digits pinched and massaged your nipple, he switched his attentions from one breast to the other, lightly grinding his hips against yours.

Your hands grasped the edge of his sleeping pants and pushed them down slightly, the light patch of hair at the base of his stomach making you moan at the sight.

Gilbert silently took off his clothes, taking his time so you had a moment to appreciate him properly, then he placed himself between your legs and helped you sit, pulling the camisole completely off your body.

“Look at me,” he asked lowly, you obliged right away, “give me your hand.”

You did. Gilbert took it with one of his and gently guided you to his member. He gave glanced at you to make sure you were okay with this, and you pecked his lips as a response. His free hand went to the back of your head and kept you close to his mouth. Your noses brushed, the room started to feel warm all of a sudden.

Your fingers wrapped around him the way you knew he liked, Gilbert let out a soft groan the moment you started moving. His hand abandoned your wrist and looked for your center, you spread your legs a bit more and he pushed his hand forward, finding your sensitive nub and rubbing against it.

“There we go,” you felt him smiling, “ride my fingers, Y/N.”

He slipped one finger inside you, then two, and after barely a few minutes you had three of his fingers thrusting in and out of you. Your hand squeezed him lightly, thumb circling his tip while your other hand clung to his thigh.

Your moans were mixing together, your mouths so close you could even imagine each breath he took going through yours.

“I love what you’re doing... but I need you around me,” he spoke, almost begging.

“Do it,” you replied, pulling him so he laid on top of you.

Gilbert took his fingers out and licked them clean without breaking eye contact. He spread your legs open entirely and lined himself with your entrance.

“You’re soaked,” he said in awe, running his tip up and down your folds.

“All for you, Gilbert boy,” you replied charmingly.

He held your hand and kissed your knuckles, then he gently dropped it beside you and held onto your thighs, driving into you firmly. Gilbert moved so now your chests were brushing against each other, your legs wrapped around him, desperate to push him deeper inside you.

“Do that again,” he moaned.

You moved your legs again, but this time your hand went up to his curls and pulled lightly, Gilbert’s face was pure bliss.

“Such a good husband,” you panted, “so good to me...”

“Do you like it when I’m inside you?” He whispered. “Does it feel good?”

“So good, my dear,” you kissed his jaw, “don’t stop...”

Gilbert placed a hand next to your head for leverage and started to move faster, you were moaning non-stop, almost screaming his name. He was getting closer, but he wanted you to finish with him, so he snuck a hand between you and rubbed tight circles around your clit.

“Oh—! Yes! Don’t stop, Gilbert, please...”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sweetheart,” he said breathing harshly.

It took him a moment, but eventually, you started to clench around him and he knew it was time. He looked for your lips blindly and drowned your moans as you came, and in exchange, you muffled his low growls and whimpers as he finished inside you.

His thrusts slowed down until he was practically still above you. Your hands ran through his hair lovingly.

“You’re okay?” You asked him quietly.

Gilbert lifted his face, a healthy blush on his cheeks and a youthful shine on his eyes. “I’m more than okay.”

You smiled at him. “Good. Are you happy you stayed?”

“Happy?” He asked in disbelief. Gilbert shifted and started to leave kisses all over your face with each word he said. “You are the most wonderful woman on earth— I love you so much.”

You giggled, stopping his attack by cupping his face and pulling him toward your lips. “I love you too.”

“Are you hungry?”

“No. But I am a bit sleepy.”

The young man carefully moved out of you to lay beside you, wrapping his arms around your figure and pulling you closer. “Let’s go back to sleep then. It’s still early.��

“Okay... and Gilbert?”

“Hmm?”

“I meant what I said before. I’m very proud of what you do to help others, so don’t ever feel guilty for doing so. What I said was just so I convinced you to stay today.”

“I know,” he chuckled, “thank you, Y/N.”

“I love you.”

“I love you more.”

Taglist.

@moonhoonie @thatonementallyillsimp @cedricisnotdead @http-itsrebecca @aleksosoto @valnunu @i-am-scared-and-useless-bisexual @greengarsstuff

#twoidiots writing #anne of green gables #gilbert blythe #gilbert blythe smut #gilbert blythe x reader #aogg

2K notes · View notes

archangeldyke-all · 5 months

Note

i just want to read sevika idm what

ok! here's a little something i hope u like it!!

men and minors dni

after the explosion and losing her arm, sevika gains some new insecurites.

i don't think the woman is vain at all (though she should be with a face as pretty as hers) but after the explosion she just can't help feeling a little... sad.

she's not sad about her arm. well, she is, but not for long. once she gets fitted for the mech arm and has it installed, i think she actually feels right at home with a weapon as a limb. she loves the thing. loves that it makes her job easier, that it makes her scarier, that it makes her stronger.

but the arcane scars that litter the left side of her upper body? she hates those.

the scars start on her cheek, trail down her throat and shoulder and collar bone, over her left breast and onto her ribs and down to her hip. the longest one actually curls around her thigh, stopping halfway down.

for the first few months after the accident, she can hardly look in the mirror. she takes a break from wearing her signature dark makeup-- too insecure to spend that much time looking at her own face each morning.

at babette's, she starts keeping her clothes on while she's with the girls.

it's not like sevika doesn't have other scars. these ones are so obvious though, with the way the shimmery blue of the arcane catches the light when she moves.

she gets over her total disgust for the scars after about a year, but the insecurity lingers.

that is, until she meets you.

you love the scars. you think they're beautiful.

when the two of you are in the flirting/talking stage of your relationship, you're always handing out compliments to sevika.

"you have such pretty eyes." or "your hair is so soft." sevika takes these compliments in stride, blushing a little and pressing a kiss to your lips in thanks.

but when you kiss her left cheek after she walks you home and mumble "your scars are so pretty" against her skin, she freezes.

"you don't have to lie." she grunts out. you blink up at her in confusion.

"lie about what?" you ask. she sighs, gesturing to her face.

"i know they're hideous." she mumbles.

you're shocked. you had no idea sevika felt that way about her scars. with the way the woman carries herself, straight spine, shoulders back, oozing confidence and strength, you figured she had no insecurities. but now, looking up into her soft watery eyes, you realize that maybe she was better at faking confidence than you thought.

"i'm not lying." you say gently up to her. "i think they're gorgeous." you whisper. she blinks down at you in disbelief.

you slowly raise your hand up, giving her time to push you away. she doesn't. she let's you cup the left side of her face, even leans into it a bit.

with your thumb, you gently brush over the scars. they are slightly indented in her face and they feel like any other scar-- a little smoother than the skin surrounding them without any peach fuzz growing on them. sevika's breath is shaky as you gently hold her face.

"i love the color." you say, referring to her scars. "especially on you. you have such beautiful brown skin, the blue contrasts wonderfully."

sevika's face is caught somewhere between disbelief, confusion, and hope.

"makes you look like magic." you say quietly, more to yourself than to her. her breath hitches. "it helps a little that you're the hottest woman i've ever laid eyes on..." you say to break the tension. sevika snorts a laugh.

after that, she starts looking at the scars differently. not completely okay with them but a little less hostile toward them.

the first time you guys are naked in front of each other, you make sevika stop her groping and kissing a moment to simply admire her body beneath you.

with a gentle finger, you begin to trace the scars. down her cheek, her throat. over her breast, where you pause to pinch her nipple, making her jump. down her ribs, over her hip and down her thigh. you press a kiss into the end of the scar on her leg, mumbling out a 'beautiful' against her skin.

above you, sevika chokes back tears.

throughout your relationship, you make a consistent effort to remind sevika you love her-- every part of her. you hold her mech hand like it's her flesh one-- you're the first person not to flinch away from it. you tend to her bruised knuckles and broken noses, unbothered by her violence, and only concerned for her health. and you always kiss the scars that litter the left side of her body with reverence and admiration, like you really do think they're magical.

over time, sevika starts to think that maybe they are too.

she doesn't hate them as much anymore, not when she's got you constantly tracing them and kissing them, telling her how beautiful she is-- how beautiful her scars are.

in fact-- she might even like them now that she's got you.

taglist

@lesbeaniegreenie @fyeahnix

#sevika #sevika imagine #sevika x reader #sevika arcane #sevika x you #soft sevika

122 notes · View notes

writefightandflightclub · 1 year

Text

The light is blinding (Joel Miller x fem!reader)

Summary: When he's hurt, you offer to wash Joel's hair for him. Turns out there may be other forms of comfort you can offer him too.

Genres: character study; angst (sorta); hurt/comfort; SMUT. Joel's POV.

Author's note: I watched TLOU ep 1 last night, then made bad choices today in favour of hyperfocussing on this 8k Joel fic. I mean, this was sort of inevitable tbf. We've been handed a sad, scruffy, brown-eyed, dusty apocalypse DILF, and there was no chance of me not adopting him as a blorbo. Anyway, this is my first attempt at Joel, I wrote this in a trance so god knows what it says and I haven't spent any time on editing/correcting. Can't promise it's any good, but if you want to wash his hair as much as I do (lol) maybe you'll enjoy it, who knows. P.s. I promise it does get super smutty. You just have to survive the extensive internal monologue and many rounds of haircare first. (I'm just like that :P)

Warnings: 18+ ONLY. Minors interacting will be blocked. EXPLICIT SMUT (unprotected p in v sex, totally ignoring practicalities like birth control in the apocalypse bc we can); canon-typical themes such as grief, apocalypse, infection/disease, trauma, injury. SPOILERS - if you know the core plot points or have seen episode one you'll be okay. Joel's POV.

Word count: 8.2k

GIF by @joelmjller (Pls lemme know if you'd like me to remove this!)

How did he get here, exactly? All stretched out on his back, your careful fingers twining through his wetted, grizzled hair?

Well, he supposes he got here because a smuggling deal had gone sideways - like usual.

He got here, because he’s getting too old for this shit, and because someone precisely young enough for this shit had garnered the advantage just long enough to land a gun barrel blow to his head. A blow which then made room for all manner of nonsense, of course; like Joel being teep kicked into a desk. The desk - owing to its sturdy construction and deliciously planed hardwood - had withstood the blow. Joel’s body, however -far less sturdily constructed - had reacted far less favourably to that particular transaction.

Most of all though, cracked ribs and busted shoulder aside, Joel is here, because of you. He is here, because you offered to wash his hair.

Joel isn’t a clean man, by any stretch. Who could be anymore, with the way things are? In truth, he’s forgotten what it’s like not to be coated with a layer of dirt and smoke and ash. But apparently, even in the midst of an apocalypse, the dried-in, caked-up, days old blood matting his hair had left something to be desired.

He’d agreed to your offer only because - honestly - it was starting to itch. Because this time he truly couldn’t do it himself, the searing pain in his ribs seeing to that. Making sure he couldn’t quite raise his arm high enough or dip his head low enough to get the job done.

He’d agreed to your offer, in part, because he thought you would be quick. And - he now realises - you are being anything but.

You have him stretched out on his back, on a repurposed dentist chair. The worn, dark green leather creaks beneath him as he adjusts, positioning himself just so. You’ve installed a makeshift neck rest and basin to the rear of the chair, and Joel’s head is currently dipped backwards into the warm water, your fingers diligently combing through the strands to release the debris and muck.

You use a cup to cascade the water from the basin over his head, cupping it with the other hand to guard his face and neck from any rogue rivulets. Then, you ease your fingertips over his scalp, massaging in circles, being extra careful -he notes- around his recently closed wound.

Yes, to Joel’s dismay, you are taking your time. You are being so thorough and so attentive, in fact, that Joel even wonders if you will end up washing the gray right out of his hair - Joel’d never been wholly convinced that his newly-developed colouring was ever anything more than a thick, impenetrable layer of dirt and ash.

You hum thoughtfully, a sweet, innocuous note as you assess your next step. “I’m switching out the water, okay?”

That doesn’t sound okay at all. That doesn’t sound done. And Joel had thought that this would be quick. Had needed this to be quick.

Before he can grunt an answer though, you are winding a towel around his hair, presumably attempting to save the drips from reaching the floor as you swap out one basin for another, setting down the one now filled with muddy brown water, and bending carefully to lift a second steaming basin of fresh water on to your makeshift plinth.

He needs to stop this here. “That’ll do,” he says gruffly, motioning to sit up -carefully- despite the pain in his ribs.

“Lie back,” you insist, the sound of your voice muffled through the towel wound over his ears but soothing nevertheless. “I’ve only managed to rinse out the blood and bird’s nests so far. We still need to wash and condition.”

Joel would protest more vigorously -means to, in fact- but the soft smile on your face dissolves him like sugar before he can do so.

He frowns though, for good measure. “Fine. Just make it quick.”

“The quicker you relax Joel,” you sing song, “the faster I’ll let you out of my seat. Deal?”

He grunts. He doesn’t relax. He can’t relax.

“And,” you add playfully, as if reading his mind. “If you can’t relax, you’d better learn fast to fake it.”

Joel sighs deeply in frustration as he lies back, and you usher him gently into position. However, the slow, deep breath he expels does genuinely serve to sink him more deeply into the chair. Does force him to release just a jot of the tension snaking through his taut muscles.

You hum again, softly, in satisfaction, and he thinks he can even hear a smile on your mouth as you foam his hair with some sweet-smelling product, your fingers resuming their careful ministrations across his scalp.

It’s nice, he notes, unwilling as he is to admit it. Your touch could knock him out better than a barrel full of oxy and a bottle of the good stuff. He almost lets himself enjoy it - an attractive woman like you working your hands into his hair, massaging with your thumbs, your fingers, your palms. Applying pressure and sensation, even into the tight muscles in his neck. Loosening some of the tension at his temples. He even consciously relaxes his forehead, feeling his frown soften. Closing his eyes instead of fixing his stare on the broken picture rail he’s sure he could fix with a few tools and a little bit of effort.

He breathes more deeply as he closes his eyes, focussing in on the sensation of your touch. On the scents flooding his nose. Floral and sweet and fruity. It smells of you, and he breathes it deeply. He tries not to think about how his pillow will smell of you later.

It shouldn’t be possible for you to smell as good as you do, Joel ponders. You even have him wondering whether perhaps he’s not the only game in town. Whether there’s another smuggler dealing in contraband which hasn’t even occurred to him to barter with. Perfumes and oils and essences. He doubts that you would be mixed up in smuggling, but he doesn’t doubt that you are capable of far more than surface-level assessments might suggest.

After all, people only survive this long with one of two things: brutality, or blind luck - and no-one is that lucky that they’ve never had to dabble in the former. Everyone who has made it this far is only out for themselves.

Therefore, who knows what secrets you hide behind your sweet facade, Joel contemplates. Though, if he did have to believe there was anyone selfless left on god’s blighted earth? If he had to believe in someone, Joel would bet cards on it being you.

He sucks in another long, slow breath, and the scent of you envelops him all over again. For a moment, he finds himself wanting to believe in you. But it’s never too long before he recalls he gave up a long time ago on believing in anything. Anything except his wits and his fists and his gun, at least.

“That’s it Joel,” you praise as he relaxes - uncoils - just a shade, and the smooth tone of your voice slides right under his skin. The thought that you want to make him feel good makes him tingle. Makes him forget - almost - that he doesn’t deserve that.

Meanwhile, your deft fingers and thumbs continue to work nimbly into him, sliding over the contours and bones and ridges of his skull. Applying a warm, steady pressure against the muscles at the nape of his neck. Circling your thumb against a spot that sends a buzzing, suffusing warmth skittering down the length of his spine. Blooming through him - and, it has been so long. So long since Joel felt anything resembling pleasure that when he feels this warm honey trail down his back, an involuntary moan overspills his parted lips.

Shit. There's no chance that you didn't hear that.

The moan reverberates in the tight, quiet room. Lingers far longer than it sounds out for. Lingers, despite how quickly Joel cuts it short - clamping his mouth shut and hoping he can pass it off as a grunt or some expulsion of pain from shifting in his chair.

Your fingers halt, still tangled in his hair. “D-Do you want me to stop?” There is a heat in your tone, Joel thinks, the vowels and consonants warm and full like the pop and crackle of a hearth.

It's new. And it occurs to him, ever so suddenly, that maybe you are enjoying this too? Touching him?

After all, he’s not insisting upon it. Didn’t suggest it. Has not attempted to prolong it. And yet, you continue, working diligently. Soothing him. Freely offering your praise and those little, contented hums - those small, burgeoning sounds which make his fingertips ache to have your skin beneath them, so that he can keep on making your lips overspill with those sweet sounds of satisfaction.

Indeed, Joel’s hair has got to be cleaner now than it’s ever been. He’s been in your chair longer than he ever intended - and you don’t seem to be working any other angle. Don’t seem to be after any contraband that he can get his hands on. Haven’t submitted any requests. Fished for any information.

Perhaps then, you are enjoying him. Enjoying performing this act of service for him - though god knows why. Perhaps you are even looking down at his body right now while he’s all laid out for you in this worn-out chair. His long limbs stretched out, clothes tugging taut over his tight, muscular frame. Perhaps you like looking at him like this, his hair slicked back and away from his sharp face and his hawkish nose, watching the twist and pull of the muscles as he sets his jaw - needing to consolidate all of his resolve simply to resist your sweet, sugary touches. Perhaps you liked when you watched his eyes flutter closed under your touch. When you watched his lips part with that sound. That throaty, undone moan, all for you.

Joel’s not stupid.

He’s clocked the way you look at him sometimes. With this gentle, inviting hunger. The way you always make the effort to come over and speak with him whenever opportunity presents itself. The way your appealing body bends to him like a flower to its sun, as though he has anything nourishing about him. As though he has anything but darkness to offer.

He’s clocked you too. Has seen the way kindness and warmth dance across your features like a living, licking flame. Has seen you glow brightly too with a steady, constant fire, which he is sure must run hotter and more fierce beneath the surface than any would estimate. He had noticed too, of course, the swell and contours of your body, hiding beneath your clothes in all the places he most enjoys.

He’s thought before how he’d like to find out where the hunger in your eyes could take him if he chased it; but in the end he knows there is never any further to go than here. That every road is a dead end since the world ended. That the quarantine zone is the only place with walls more impenetrable than his own.

Still; he’s thought about you more than he’d care to admit. To Tommy. To Tess. To you. To himself. Has thought about the way your lips might feel on his. How soft and warm your body might be if he held it up against him. The way his calloused hands might look with his fingers sunk into your flesh, grabbing up handfuls of you like you are his daily bread - the very thing he needs to survive.

Of burying his head between your thighs for hours and trying to suck the impossible sweetness out of you, as though, somehow, he could then begin to understand how someone as good as you is capable of existing in a world as shitty and cruel as this.

He’s had darker thoughts too though. Thoughts of filling you rough and sudden - if you’d let him. Of burying his anger in you with every thrust, deep enough that he could attempt to forget it. Of letting you take his rage from him for just a few moments - as if it could ever truly leave him for a moment longer than that.

But of course, in actuality, he’s done none of that. Joel hasn’t pulled on a single one of those threads. He hasn’t unravelled.

Instead, for the most part, Joel has simply ignored you. Ignored you, because that’s the precisely the last thing he wants to do. Ignored you, because the safest option - Joel has established - is usually to give himself the opposite of whatever he thinks he wants.

That is… he’s ignored you until today. Until you offered to wash his hair. A simple yet towering offer of kindness in a world blighted by dark and rot. An offer that feels like more than he deserves when all he’s ever done for you is to give you the brush off. To answer you tersely, his aim with every interaction to have it over quick.

Still… he’d said yes. Or, at least, he’d declined to protest. Had nodded. Had followed you.

If he’s being honest with himself, he could have asked Tommy to help him, even if he was trying to obscure the severity of his latest injuries from his dear ol’ brother. Even Tess - she’d have done it. With plenty of griping, but she would have done it.

The truth is though, that he wanted it to be you. Needed it to be you. He’d gravitated towards you, even before he knew what you might be prepared to give him. Even without any trade to offer. For you, he’d unravelled. Just a little; in a moment of weakness. He hasn’t slept and he hasn’t succeeded and he hasn’t succumbed for so long, that he finally slipped. Finally gave into one of his wants. Finally gave in to what he wanted most. To seat himself in front of the warm hearth of you and to feel a little god dang comfort.

Joel opens his eyes, expression washing clean with a new resolve, and your fingers still frozen in his hair. He fixes his gaze on the broken picture rail. Precisely at the point where it fractures. Where it needs fixing. He needs a little fixing too, he thinks. He’s sure now, that he’s chosen the right tool for the job, when not another damn thing could do it.

“No,” he finally responds, his voice unwavering, blinking his bitter coffee eyes, sweetened already by your sugar. A gentle gulp sinking down the corded column of his neck. “I don’t want you to stop.”

From behind and above him, he hears you release a breath as though you may have been holding one, tight in your chest, and you slide your fingers from his hair. “Good.” Good. The word rattles pleasantly in his chest when you say it. “We’ll do your conditioner next.”

And, for the first time, Joel unclenches his fingers from where they have been curled around the arm rests of the chair, clinging on to the lip until his knuckles had turned white.

This time - for all he can tell via his scalp - your touch feels a little bolder. A little looser. You even drag your nails over his head now, applying long, sizzling scratches which send that same buzzy warmth snaking down his back. You massage him more eagerly, blood flooding to his crotch as he thinks about having your strong, supple, precise hands work him in other places. He imagines, as your nails graze over him, how you might claw harsh stripes down his back in a moment of ecstasy. As your thumb massages a circle into the spot behind his ear, imagines how you might circle the soft pad of it around the swollen head of his cock, collecting up the glistening bead of precum as he leaks for you. Imagines, as you carefully pour a cup of warm, cascading water over his head, how he could bathe himself with the warmth of your skin on his. Imagines, as he hears the subtle wet sounds created as you scrunch sweet-smelling elixirs into his hair, how it might sound if your own juices were being coaxed out of you by his fingers until they began to drip, working down his veined, muscled forearm.

He allows himself to imagine everything he plans to deny himself. He at least allows himself to have that.

“That temperature still okay for you?” you ask as you lift the cup of water once again, fracturing his sordid daydreams.

Joel gives a terse grunt. It’s all he can manage.

“So,” you ask breezily. “Are you going anywhere nice for your holidays?”

It takes Joel a few moments to realise just what you’re doing. To twig. It’s a decade - shit, more - since he had a haircut like that, so it takes him a while to pick up that you’re echoing the banal small talk which used to occur as you sat down in the barber chair. Those memory cogs are stiff. He hasn’t turned them in a long time. He doesn’t want to remember that there was anything before. At least, not a lot of it.

Still, your bit takes him by surprise. It’s such a ludicrous contrast that it makes him laugh to think about how things have changed. Who can even go on holiday now? You can’t even leave the quarantine zone. Shit. Even if you could, you wouldn’t want to. And so, Joel laughs. He laughs and he barely recognises the sound from his own mouth. He laughs… and he instantly regrets it, because he knows better than to pull on any of those threads.

But; it’s too late now.

He laughs and you mirror him, the sound melodious and hopeful, and all of a sudden Joel can imagine everything he’s been avoiding you for.

He hasn’t been avoiding you because he wants to fuck you - not really. He’s fucked plenty of folk, and he’s moved on.

He’s avoiding you, because of how easily he can imagine you in a summer dress, twirling in the yard to show it off to him. How easily he can imagine you sitting on a front porch gripping your morning cup of coffee and the sun shining on your face as you smile up at him. How easily he can imagine you lifting a tray of freshly baked cookies out of the oven, batting his hand away as he steals one before it cools.

Truthfully, he has no idea whether you ever did a single one of those things before - before all this. He doesn’t even really care whether you did. He knows it’s a flat, idealised, empty picture postcard version of you.

But, even so, it still hurts.

It still hurts, because of just how easily he could imagine waking up beside you in his house.

The house that no longer exists.

The house with Sarah in it.

And that’s why he never pulls on that thread.

That’s why he avoids you.

That’s why this can never work.

Because you?

You make him remember all the sweet things. All the sweet things the world used to contain before the rot and the death and despair painted over everything. Infected it.

You make him remember the taste of fresh mangoes. The feeling of sand beneath his feet and waves washing over his toes. Saturdays at the mall. Picking away at his guitar in the living room. The easy jubilation of ball games on the TV on Sundays, with Tommy in the kitchen plating up chicken wings. Of bad movie nights. Of mornings spent around the kitchen table, and his daughter cooking up birthday pancakes.

That’s why he can’t ever start to be happy with you. Why he can’t pull on that thread; because all the good things in life are attached to it. All tied and knotted and tangled up with “before”.

When he dreams of you - when he lets himself - he dreams of then too.

He has to, doesn’t he? Because the past is the only place to build a future when the present is apocalyptic, isn’t it? When you are the only thing he hasn’t lost yet, and everything else -pretty much- is already dead and gone.

It kills him that he found you now.

Found you too late.

It kills him because Sarah would have loved you, and because he thinks he could have too.

You don’t know all of this, of course. You can’t ever know this. And so, your oblivious fingers continue touching him, until he feels another moan begin to spool itself tight in his chest, getting ready to unravel. This time though, he is less sure whether it is a moan of pleasure or of anguish. More and more these days, those two feelings have been starting to feel precisely the same.

“Can we move this along?” he asks gruffly, some of the weight settling back into his brow. He asks, predictably, for the opposite of what he wants. It has to be like that. There’s no other road anymore.

“We can stop whenever you like but… that’s a shame.”

His frown deepens. “Why?”

“Because your hands had only just started to unclench.”

Joel’s heart clenches at the thought you were watching him that intently. That you were weighing the state and tension of his body. Valiantly trying to release some of that weight from him, even when you must be so heavy too.

And of course, knowing this, he only tries to push you further away. Before his dreams of you are seared even more brightly under his skin.

“You know what. I should go.” His chest constricts - throat grows tighter, a lump forming.

Joel idly wonders if his grief will ever stop feeling so raw. That’s the second disease, he thinks. The other monster infecting everything around it. The shadow of the original cloud. He wonders if it will always be this debilitating, even after he’s pushed it down as far as it can go. It’s not only a grief for what was lost, he ponders. It’s also a grief for what he can never have again. It's a grief for you and all the ways he could have loved you.

He sits up -carefully but abruptly, hand clamped over his aching ribs- and his wetted hair sends rivulets snaking down his face, his neck, his chest. Inching beneath the collar of his green button down shirt. Collecting on his shoulders like a pattern of indoor raindrops.

“Joel,” you scold, tutting lightly. Following quickly after him with the towel, trying to mop up after him. Hastily, you towel off his hair. Sneak your hand beneath his collar, gathering the drops up from his chest and neck.

With effort, and a grimace, Joel swings his legs around, until he is sitting upright, feet planted on the floor. But, whether for the pain or for the promise of pleasure - he’s not sure - he can’t bring himself to move any further than that. Especially not as you finally round from the basin, the damp towel slung over your shoulder, your hands and wrists still shined and wet from caressing his hair in a way he can only describe as reverent.

You kneel before him, drying your hands off and setting the towel down before boldly sliding your palms up his denim-clad thighs. “Joel. Would you just let me take care of you?"

He meets your eyes and finds them soft but determined. Empty of darkness, even with the black expanding abyss of your pupil eating away at the colour of your iris.

Joel looks down at your hands as you begin to smooth them up and down, inching slowly up towards his crotch before retreating - repeating the pattern. He looks at you in displeasure, but there’s nothing about your touch which is unwelcome - and that’s exactly the problem. He swallows. Gathers his question up in his throat before he offers it to you gently, as though in cupped, outstretched palms. “How?”

Your beautiful eyes flash with pity then, he thinks, or something like it. It seems like a silly question, but after all this time he doesn’t recall what it’s like to be cared for. He doesn’t know how to let you.

Your palm reaches up to the scruff on his cheek. You smooth it fondly. “Lie back,” you encourage, with a soft smile which seems to glow from the inside, like a porch backlit with the glow of home. “And just let me take care of the rest.”

Joel has always found something to fight for, but today, he has no fight left in him. In truth, he doesn’t want to fight this. To fight you. It is easy to give in to you. In fact, it's too easy. That has always been the problem.

Your hands continue to travel up and down his thighs, and he feels the warmth of you bleed through the fabric.

God. He’s already hard for you. Already full and throbbing in his jeans. Already, he is imagining your hands wrapping around the thick, straining mass of him. Imagining the way that -in moments - you may be unloosing his belt, threading leather through denim loop. The way you might pop the button keenly with your thumb, and he might groan as you relieve the pressure. The way you might unzip the straining fly to have his substantial length spring free, so rarely touched and so so ready to be taken care of.

At the thought of that alone, he’s straining against the seams of his pants, a pressure which sits smack bang between pleasure and pain.

“Joel,” you whisper softly, and he realises he hasn’t yet moved from his position.

“Right.” He swallows. He lies back. Stretches himself out, feeling far more exposed this time, even if he is still fully clothed.

You stand, quickly disappearing the basin away and soon you’re back, standing over Joel and watching him laid out all needy like this. His eyes travel over you, entranced by your form, and he suddenly needs friction. Needs the relief he didn't even know he was waiting for until you offered it - or, implied it. He bucks his hips up, not even caring if he’s being subtle, and the denim and leather creak as he shifts. He punches out a breath as he strains in his pants, chasing any morsel of friction he can. The feeling of his shaft pushing harder against the seam as his whole cock twitches for you. For those hands. For that plush mouth. Maybe for that cunt of yours.

As usual though, when Joel feels anything good, there is a familiar swell of guilt too; this time, riding in on the flood of arousal to his cock. This time, there’s something new to be feeling guilty for too. Something to add to that already long list. He feels guilty for having all of these thoughts about you, despite never having asked you where you were from. Before. What you used to do. Who you lost.

“I’m sorry,” Joel offers, before he even knows that his mouth is moving. Before he’s even figured out what it is he’s sorry for.

Truth is, he’s sorry for so many reasons. For what he’s done. What he’s lost. Whatever you’ve lost. For not asking you about it. Mainly, he realises, because he can’t make you any promises. None that he could keep. Not to keep you safe. He can’t promise you that.

He thinks you’ll ask him what for - why he’s sorry. But instead, you say something else.

“Don’t be.”

If only it was that easy.

Even so, he looks into your eyes as your hungry gaze skims the length of his body, settling at the bulge at his crotch as you drag your tongue along the pillow of your lower lip. You’re beautiful. Vibrant. Full of life and lust and hunger. Alive in a dead world; and suddenly, it doesn’t matter one bit to Joel where you came from. It doesn’t matter what happened before. It only matters where you’re going. What you want. How he can give it to you.

But it is you who gives him something.

You hinge at the hips, slanting your mouth against Joel’s, and he feels your lips brush up against the scruff on his top lip. Feels the pillow of your plush mouth meet his before your tongue fleets out, licking into him like a searing, dancing flame. You hum hungrily into his mouth and his lips chase you as you pull away, another backlit smile dancing on your face, your features already beginning to resemble home to him in a world where there's no such thing.

Joel watches you move now, with quiet fascination, as you kick off your boots. As you wiggle your pleasing hips, untying then easing your cargo pants and panties down your thighs. His tongue curls around his lip as he is gifted glimpses of your skin - although you are still covered to your upper thigh by the yellow tunic top you’re wearing - and now he can’t help but palm himself through his jeans for a morsel of relief.

Still. What you're about to offer him? It feels like far too much. “What are you doing? You don’t have to-“

“-Tell me you don’t want this and I’ll stop,” you promise, meeting his eyes, open and honest and ready to back off if he doesn’t want this. But shit, how could he not want you? Look at you - and so he can’t. He can’t possibly tell you that, even though he thinks that he should.

“No. God, I want you,” Joel pleads, voice hollowed-out with need. All spent, like ash.

“And you’re going to have me.”

You kick your pants and panties off, leaving them to pool discarded on the floor, and Joel palms himself a little harder, grabbing the fat roll of himself through the denim as he catches a glimpse. They’re nothing sexy, of course; but from the way they’ve fallen he is able to note the telltale wet spot on the crotch. It looks like you’ve soaked them through, and God he wants to feel your wetness for himself.

You ease over him, settling your knees on to either side of the leather chair, where Joel’s legs are stretched out before him, sturdy thighs slightly parted to accommodate the arousal between his legs.

You’re still wearing your tunic top, bright yellow like sunshine, and the length of it dances and clings at intervals to your hips and thighs as you move. It’s driving him wild that you are bare beneath. All he can think about is that warm, delicious wetness of yours spilling over him. God, he wants to hear it. Wants to squeeze it out of you. Wants it to drip down the veined shaft of him.

You straddle his thighs, knees folded, the soles of your feet pointed up towards your ass cheeks, and your heat settles just below his own - not quite grinding over him, but tantalisingly close.

You take a moment like this to simply look at him. To gaze into his coffee brown eyes as though there’s something more to him than being sorry and bitter. Like you could see anything sweet there. Anything worth wanting. Then, you comb his damp hair back with your fingers, drawing the strands back from his forehead. Tucking and curling them around his ears.

Your touch - your tenderness - makes him ache. Makes him throb. Makes him want to bury himself in you. His tongue, his fingers, his cock, his feelings - anything of him you’ll take. And, as he wraps his arms around you a wracked moan unspools from his chest as his rough fingertips find the soft skin beneath your yellow tunic. As his touch traverses the contours of you he’s always admired from a distance.

As his jaw falls open, slack with desire, you drink down his moan, catching the resonant sound in the cave of your mouth. Kissing him with a gentle yet constant hunger. With a red hot spark of deviance in your sweet eyes which almost makes Joel spill creamy ropes into his pants there and then. Your tongue travels along your lower lip. Your gaze drops, lust dark and heavy to the bulge at his crotch, and you unloop his belt with those hands of yours. They'll look small next to the size of him, he thinks. He likes that thought a lot.

“Let’s see what contraband you’re smugglin’ in these pants of yours, cowboy," you smile, and Joel's eyes crinkle with rare amusement. His face tips up with a lopsided smile which is quick to drop - all of him focussed on where you're about to touch him.

He twitches eagerly in his jeans thinking about how tight you will grip him, but you don’t touch him just yet. Instead, you shuffle yourself back, down his legs, giving yourself enough space to tug on his clothing and to ease it down his thighs. Once his pants and his boxers have reached his knees you stop there, abandoning them almost as soon as his thick, veined length is sprung free, nestling all tender against the hatch of greying hair trailing down his abdomen - where his shirt is lifted.

He’s flushed a deep colour already. Veined and needy and weeping for you. His need becomes even more urgent yet as he thinks of your hands and the way they move - the way they might touch him. Take care of him. As he thinks about you sliding your thumb over the pearl of precum at his head.

Still, he is not quite ready for the feeling when you dip forward to slide your tongue around the head of him instead, gathering that salty bead with your tongue, lapping it up with relish. He feels you hum around the head of him, the vibration sending a zip of pleasure flooding along his length. Making his balls tighten and ache already.

He wants you. He needs you. He wants you with an urgency, and yet here you are, still taking your time. Taking your time to suck at him and feel him weigh heavy over your tongue until your jaw aches from it. To grip him in your hand and marvel at the girth of him. At the way he is so sensitive that every motion and shift of your pattern makes him melt into the chair, increasingly boneless, his brow burdened with need.

You are tender with him. Careful, of his injuries. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? You touch him like he’s wounded; everywhere. His whole body. His whole soul too. And he is, isn’t he? All of him is hurting? Has been for so long?

Joel groans, his lip almost splitting from biting down and stifling his moans. He never was a vocal lover but God, it’s different for you. And this time, the sound punches out of him as you shift. As you settle your cunt over him and he feels your sopping heat glide along his length for the first time. It is a non-descript sound, halfway between pain and pleasure; and instantly, concern flashes in your eyes. You pause; lift off of him with a rise of your thighs and check-in with him.

“Joel. Are you okay? Am I hurting you?”

Are you? His breath is searing in and out of his lungs. Ragged breaths, jolting his pained ribs. You have him on the edge and so alight with desire for you that his need feels unbearable. He’s aching to fill you up. His face is contorted and crumpled by his need, brows drawn down, eyes half-lidded. But is this pain? Or is this something else? Something he has forgotten.

For a moment, then, he almost answers “yes”. Yes, because he doesn’t remember anything else but pain and so, the sensation he’s feeling now? Isn’t that pain too? Is there anything else?

He’s almost grateful when he shifts slightly, writhes against the chair to buck his hips keenly up in search of you as you withdraw so cruelly from him, his muscles coiling up. He’s grateful that the shift does indeed send pain blooming through his side; because he knows then, with certainty, that you are bringing him nothing but pleasure.

He’s grateful too though, for the pain, because a pleasure like this? A pure hit of it, not cut through with anything he's more used to? Joel thinks it would be too much for him to take. Joel thinks you are too much for him. Far more than he deserves.

“Joel?” you prompt, sliding your palm against his scruff. He hears it rasp like a scraped match. “I want you.”

You don’t want me, the voice in his head sounds out. I have nothing I can give you. But those are not the words that make it to his lips. Those are not the words at all. “Then have me, sweetheart.”

Joel may have nothing he feels he can give you, but holy shit he wants everything you are offering. He wants your plush, velvet mouth. Your smooth thighs. He wants the pooling slick between your legs - and for once, just this once, he intends to allow himself to satisfy his needs.

He figures he will simply owe you a debt. Find something that you want or need and acquire it for you. He simply has to think of this like a transaction, doesn’t he? Something familiar. Something he knows. That way, he’s not taking anything he doesn’t deserve - and he sure as hell doesn’t deserve you.

Once invited back to his body, sure of what he wants, you kiss him. Deeply, hungrily, your tongue rolling and writhing against his. Your breaths just as ragged as his. Your thighs quaking next to his, your want more than evident.

You break for air and you rise up on your knees again so that you can settle over him, notching the fat, swollen head of him against your folds.

You look like a dream on top of him, and with this yellow fabric dancing about your thighs, you look to Joel like you’re wearing a sun dress. Indeed, when he looks up at you - when he blocks everything else out - you make it feel like nothing ever happened. Like nothing was ever lost.

You look just like you’re about to fuck him on his bed on white crisp sheets. Like you’ll fall asleep beside him and in the morning he’ll make you breakfast.

You look like everything he wanted and found far too late.

You are beautiful. You are good. You are gentle. Gentle still. Gentle despite everything. And where on earth did you learn that from - how on earth did you hang on to it - in a world like this? A world which has not been gentle with him. Which has been out to get him at every turn.

You are gentle with him, even when he is undeserving. Even when he has been anything but.

Gingerly then, you settle yourself over him, and once his head is notched there and your slick hand is guiding him home, he slips easily past your folds. His eyes flutter closed as he feels your warmth wrap around him, the tightness of you hugging his girth. You’re so tight that he feels like he must be splitting you apart, but the way you’re shaking for him, the way these delicious moans unravel from your mouth tells him it feels just as good for you too.

You’re gentle with him. Sinking down on him slowly. Being ever so cautious of his ribs and his bruises and scrapes. You’re making him feel so good. So close to coming undone.

But god, he’s not planning on being gentle with you.

There’s a part of Joel that wants to make love to you, sure; but he’s not even sure he’d know how to do that anymore. How to be tender. How to be gentle. And so, he reaches for you in the only way he knows how. Reaches for you with his arms, his hands. With a body that doesn’t remember pleasure - not really. With a soul that doesn’t remember anything good - not really. He reaches for you, with hands that only know how to kill things.

In the end, it’s clunky, when he extends his touch towards you. Rough - and far too desperate. He reaches for you like it’s survival - the one thing he knows how to do - and he claws at your hips, the rough pads of his flesh sinking into your skin like dough. He has the sense, at least, to check with you, to ask with words rasped through gravel in his throat if he can fill you up. And as soon as you say yes, as soon as your breathy affirmatives and pleas lilt to his ears, Joel is dragging you down on him. Spearing you -abrupt and sudden- with the fat length of his dick, surging into you all at once.

The motion, along with the sudden swell of him punches a breath from your lungs, your rib cage flaring with quick short pants. Your eyes, rolling back into your skull as you mewl his name, and god, if he wasn’t hurt he’d be drilling into you already, fucking himself up into you at a brutal pace, so long as you’d let him.

“S-sorry,” he stutters, with effort. “Too much?”

“Almost. Joel - fuck. I’m so full of you.”

He stills as you breathe around him, adjusting to his size, and as soon as you’re ready you rise up on your knees, dragging electric pleasure all along his shaft as your cunt strokes and grips him tightly.

Then, when you sink yourself down once more, impaling yourself on his length, Joel screws his eyes shut as he eases -glides- into the wet, warm cushion of you all over again. You’re so soft and tight and forgiving, your walls relenting to the girth of him, yet providing such glorious friction that it makes his head spin. Makes him see spots, the edges of his vision whiting out.

Next, Joel moves too, adjusting his hips slightly. Helping you impale yourself on him over and over like this. He keeps it going, despite the burn of pain in his ribs and his shoulder. He tries to guide you with the claws of his hands at your hips, until it begins to hurt him too much. Until all he can do is lie back and take it from you. All he can do is feel it, emitting gusty, billowing breaths from the shocked “o” of his plush lips as he attempts to stave of his end. To do all he can to take care of your end too before he spills himself.

He needs to. Needs to take care of you like this, because he can’t offer you any other damn thing.

He can’t promise to take care of you.

He can’t promise that to anyone ever again.

He will only break it.

So, no promises. But surely, he can feel pleasure, for these fleeting moments? Surely, he can give you that too, because even if he doesn’t he’s damn sure you deserve at least that much.

He reaches for you. In desperation again. Like it’s survival. Like he can’t live without this. Without you. Even though he has already. Even though he'll have to again.

For now though, for right now, he's filling you all the way up. Squeezing your juices out of you. Pushing them out with every thrust until he’s fucking you with wet, obscene sounds. Until your slick is coursing down his shaft, coating his balls, inching over him.

With a grunt, Joel gathers some slick with the two forefingers of his left hand, and he rubs the calloused pads of his fingers into your clit. You yowl at the pressure -the pleasure- and then you guide him with your hand over his, Joel quickly learning your pace and your patterns, replicating it perfectly when you release your guiding touch.

It feels so good. It feels so good and your eager, pleasured moans are billowing down to him, your cunt clenching down on him and his dick is feeling fucking blissful as you repeatedly sink yourself. It feels good - so good - and it’s more than he deserves but god, he’s going to take it. He's going to take it even if he has to be punished for it later.

He’s pretty sure the world has been punishing him for years anyway. Pretty sure it’s keeping score and will be sure to let him know about it if he dares to take too much.

For now though.

Holy shit.

It feels so good and you’re so beautiful. So perfect. Better than he could have imagined, his flattened daydreams of you nothing compared to the real thing. You’re a vision, and you’re too good for this blighted earth and you’re every bit deserving of the life Joel knows he can never give you.

It’s bittersweet and you’re beautiful; but you’re too beautiful to look at - bright like the sun in your yellow tunic, fabric moving around your thighs like a sun dress, like something you might have worn in the before times. Like you might have worn in his yard if he’d still had a home to offer you. Maybe. Maybe you would've. It kills him that he'll never know. Never know what you could have had. What he could have given you.

You’re beautiful, and god you’re too beautiful to look at and so he drags you down to his lips as you clamp down around him, squeezing him like a vice, causing pleasure to sear white hot from his middle, creamy ropes of cum filling you up as you convulse. Your spasming cunt sends jolting aftershocks zipping through his length, ekeing every last drop from him, draining him dry.

You’re too beautiful. Too good of a thing for him to hold on to - and so Joel keeps kissing you, his hands coming to cup your face as tenderly as his killing hands know how. Kissing you, for long enough that he can quash the tears which threaten to squeeze out from the corners of his eyes. He kisses you softly, his sentiments dissolving like sugar against your mouth - as sweet as he can muster.

He kisses you, until he feels the shape of your mouth morph into a smile, and that’s it. That's when he stops.

That’s when he stops, because he can’t let himself feel this. He can’t let himself feel this because he can’t pull on that thread. Not when everything he has worked so hard to push down is all knotted and tangled together. Everything he’s loved and everything he’s lost, all bundled up in his chest.

He can’t let himself feel this because it was far more than he expected to feel.

He’d thought that you would be quick. Thought -hoped- you were just using him. Like this was a transaction. That maybe this was how you collect advantages. How you’ve managed to survive. Instead though, you gave, and you took, but it was not transactional in the slightest. And Joel has nothing left in his heart or his pockets except ration cards. Nothing he can give you in return.

Most importantly though, he can’t let himself feel this, because happiness died when the world did.

Died when she did.

And, happiness?

Well - Joel doesn’t believe he deserves to feel it again.

That’s why he encourages you off of him a little too quickly, even when you pepper kisses along the column of his neck. Why he moves away a little too abruptly, even when you tongue hungrily at the salt-slick sweat which has pooled in the hollow of his throat. Why he sets his face, all stern again even as he’s still leaking out of you.

Anyway, he stands, grunting out in pain. Maybe in anguish. Pulling his pants up with his good arm, and preparing to go.

He sets his face, and he looks back at you, where you have huddled yourself in his spot on the chair, your makeshift yellow sun dress hitched up around your hips, exposing where you glisten, all slick with the evidence of what he just did with you.

You're beautiful. Too beautiful. You look like summer when he meets your eyes. A sun that is bright and constant, like it used to be before the rot clouded over the skies.

A light that is far too bright for him.

Part of him expects you to look sad. To look surprised that he has leapt up like this, motioning to leave so violently. Expects you to plead with him to give you more; but instead, you look at him levelly. Knowing, not naive. Maybe you too are clear on the limits of what’s possible. Clear that there are some things that can never be.

Still, as that soft smile plays over your face, as Joel holds the memory of your touch over his body, the bitter coffee look in his eyes sweetens just a little.

“Listen. Thanks," he states brusqely. It’s not enough. Not by any stretch. But unless you want some contraband or some shit, it’s all he’s got.

“No problem, Joel-y. I... I just wanted to take care of you. I thought you deserved that - at least once.”

Tears prick at the corners of Joel’s eyes. Stinging; but pushed down and flattened before you can even notice it. He’s not quite sure. Not quite sure whether hearing you say he deserves something he’s sure that he doesn’t counts as pleasure or pain, but he supposes that it doesn’t matter anymore anyway. He’s back to not knowing the difference. Not recognising pleasure or happiness when they stare him in the face, because now they have become strangers.

Joel nods efficiently at you. Picks up his rucksack and moves towards the doorway, trying not to think about the fact you’re still full of him. About the fact that you’re still smiling, that backlit glow of home imviting him in.

Truth be told, he can’t imagine ever being happy again.

If he could imagine it though? If he could imagine being happy, he’s sure as all hell that it would be with you.

You’re like summer, he thinks. Bright. Luminous. It's just that Joel’s not looking for the light.

For someone who’s so used to the dark? Like him? The light is blinding.

Still, he pauses in the doorway, turning back towards you for one moment more. From the surprise on your face now, he can tell you didn’t even expect that much from him - and by God, you deserve so much better.

His eyes sweeten, just a little further, and his face sets - now with a different kind of resolve. He offers his words, like they’re cupped in outstretched palms. Like he could be gentle. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“You don’t owe me a debt, Joel.”

He nods, but that doesn’t mean at all that he accepts your assertion.

His eyes tick over to the broken picture rail, right where it fractures. His gaze lingers on it for a moment, cataloguing what tools he might need to fix it. Clocking the picture frames of salvaged art you have leaning up against the wall, not yet hung.

“I said, I'll make it up to you.” You nod efficiently back at him, and Joel drinks one more long measure of you in before he leaves. Maybe it's not quite a promise, but right now, it's all he's got.

He’d burn the world down for you, he thinks, if it could change a damn thing.

Thing is though, the world has already burned.

He can’t make you many promises. Can’t keep you safe. Make you happy. Offer you a home.

He’ll only let you down.

Maybe all of that is true. Maybe it is - but Joel knows one thing for sure. You’re brighter than the sun, and, in a world full of darkness? He just can’t look away, even though you’re blinding.

#joel miller x reader #tlou #pedro pascal #the last of us #tlou spoilers #the last of us spoilers

840 notes · View notes

sashimiyas · 1 year

Text

TIme is a fickle thing

Summary: Suna’s patience runs thin while he waits for you to give him an I love you back

Word count: 2.7k

Genre: angst; ex husband Suna and ex wife reader; the fourth installment; depictions of an unhealthy relationship; one threat of violence; Suna is quite volatile but that is the theme

A/n: they make me so emosh! if you want a happy ending, stick with Back to shore. Otherwise, this is a continuation to Frost

Cutting open a scar doesn’t undo the evidence of the first gash.

Suna realizes quickly but he cannot help but press, indent his affections as though it could erase former transgressions. Yet it’s hard to ignore your watery expression whenever he whispers the three words, the way you retreat whenever he tries to progress forward. His intentions are sincere and yet this feels like punishment.

Why does loving you always feel so guilty?

Suna leaves your front door once again defeated and maybe just a little hopeless. He doesn’t want to say it, but the novelty of it all, of the I love you’s spoken as greetings, whimsy, as alibis on the good natured jokes he likes to tease you with, and the farewells, it’s turned into an onerous load that he struggles to bear.

And he’s mad at himself for thinking that, for being so hypocritical when he told you he could wait, mad at himself for fucking up everything because it wouldn’t be like this, feel like this if the past didn’t happen.

It must be his fault for thinking things would have changed.

When has he not agonized over your existence, rueing it and thanking whatever it is that brought you into his life. The turn of this new chapter seduced him into the idea of a happy ending when it’s anything but. Suna feels like he’s sprinting to the finish line that doesn’t seem to exist.

He takes a scalding hot shower once he gets home that blots his back pink in the fresh shape of misery. The downpour mixes with his tears. He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until he hears his sobs echo back at him.

What’s even sorrier is the way his eyes shine when he wishes you good night. The message is filled with stupid emojis and a cheesy Facebook mom meme for good measure because he knows they irritate you in the it’s only funny because it’s from you kind of way. How pitiful it is that he cannot settle into bed until he receives something back.

And it’s still not an I love you.

So Suna lays on his mattress in the shape of a star and he stares at his ceiling. He replays the moments he’s spent with you, a practice he’s now done for the past few weeks, considers every action he’s made, and he tallies all the smallest missteps that have led him astray.

Maybe he does need to rein in his affections with the way you’re no closer to saying it back. He can’t tell if he’d rather be strung along by the imaginary pull of possibility or for it to dangle and rest beneath your tongue. While he laments his situation, a budding weed grows in between his ribs, resentment in the shape of a thorn.

There’s an apathy that slackens his gait when he meets with you the next day. He’s so used to walking on eggshells that this liberation feels heavy. Downtrodden when he greets you and you notice immediately.

“Rin?” you ask in a tiny voice. Suna’s hands, curled in his hoodie pouch because all he wants right now is to protect himself, forgets all about it. Fuck self preservation when you look at him like that with a concern for his wellbeing that makes him actually feel important.

Your warmth stings into the cold of his palms. Fingers blindly reach into the spaces between his and you look at him imploringly and Suna finds himself wanting to apologize.

He sees a vision of his past, of a fast fashion blazer and documents with two separate signatures. That precedence makes him weary, that despondent expression of yours one he’d never want to be the cause of again. The man pulls you in and desperately mumbles an I’m sorry into your temple.

“It’s nothing,” he assures, “don’t worry.”

“Hey, you poop,” you peel yourself from him with a small push of his hips. “What’s wrong?”

You trace the bones underneath your fingertips and blink while you patiently wait. Suna wants to tell you, wants to bare himself open because that’s all he’s ever wished. He wants to be true and honest and completely yours but why won’t you tell him what he’s doing wrong? What is the secret to getting you to say that you love him back?

But then you slink your hand up his abdomen and he gets lost at the way it swims past his chest, sloping up his neck so that you can dig your fingers through his hair and tell him, “I’m worried.”

The sensation is sedating. He spills into you and you hold him carefully like a pile of unwound yarn. What was he thinking? What’s another lifetime to the years you’d spent separated? When all he had were memories and spared glances?

Suna pulls your other arm around his neck and draws himself to you. He inhales and leads you on top of him as he seats himself onto your barstool.

He likes the way you look above him, and it’s impossible not to admire you with the most adoring eyes. Suna settles on the fact that you’re real and in his lap and just barely his and decides to ignore everything else.

“I was being stupid,” he says distractedly as he brushes below your jaw with his knuckles. “Forget about it.”

“Are you sure? You can talk to me.” You pinch the strings of his hoodie in anxiousness, “shouldn’t we be more, I don’t know, open this time around?”

“Yeah? You have some shit to complain about?”

Suna laughs at the face you make, puckered and suspiciously sweet, “your feet are fucking cold.”

The athlete has to kiss you to stop himself from laughing too hard.

“I’m serious! They’re like icicles and they wake me up at night.”

Your giggles join his when he tickles your ribs, a perfect symphony he orchestrated. Happiness is shared and it’s with you.

“I’ll wear socks if you buy me them. I’ve always wanted some weed socks.”

“You don’t even smoke.”

“But they look cool.”

You snort, “okay. That’s it?”

“Yeah,” Suna nods with his eyes on your lips. He drags you down to him and his eager lips, “that’s it.”

He feels like he’s holding the sun in his arms. It’s amazing how your body can hold all the warmth that he’ll ever need and the fear wanes into nothing but words of adoration.

“I love you,” words fluidly slipped between chaste chasing of lips.

You kiss him instead of saying it back.

And the illusion shatters. Suna presses his feet against the floor so he could move back, creating distance between the two of you. He holds his arms out straight to push you away.

You still on top of him. Concern is apparent on your face and there’s a piece of him, that thorny little bud, that just hates the look of it.

“What’s wrong?”

“You tell me.”

You sputter as if he’s said something absolutely inane and that anger, the one he thought had burned away, coils tighter around the bones in his chest.

“What are you—? Nothing.” With the moment lost, you step out of his lap and stand in front of him with a helpless shrug. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Suna finds himself standing too. He’s defensive and scared. He’s offered everything he has so what does he do now that he still isn’t enough?

“Then why do you look like you’re going to cry every time I tell you I love you?”

He watches the way you recoil into yourself. You hunch over with pinched shoulders as if to shield your heart and the image stings when he’s opened up his ribs and left his on display.

“Why do you make me feel guilty for the way that I feel?”

Your face breaks in devastation, but Suna is too busy being swallowed by the depths of frustration to even care.

“I don’t mean to. I’m just—“

“You’re just what?” he goads, then fills the silence of your response with his pent up rage. “Scared? Again? Like I’m fucking not?”

Suna’s breathing erratically and his heart is working just as hard. He wants to break something, run some sprints, he doesn’t fucking know. Just do something to rid himself of this feeling.

And all you do is just stare at him wordlessly with no response. Just the same as every time he bares his feelings for you and he’s had enough of talking to a fucking wall.

“Say something because clearly anything that comes out of my mouth hurts you.”

“Rin,” you plead with a step forward. He flinches away slightly, making you halt in your step. “I’m sorry. Let’s talk this out.”

All he does is look at you because Suna can’t trust the words that could slip between his lips You try to reach for him again and he lets you place your hand on his forearm. He gulps at the touch, swallowing a despair that builds in his throat, but makes no move to pull you in.

“I—“ your expression is distraught. You stumble over the vowel repeatedly, dancing on the precipice of everything he desires. “I-I… I’m— I…” you shut your eyes and shake him in your grip, head pressed against his chest. “I’m trying. I want to.”

“Is it me?” Suna has to ask though the crack in his voice makes it difficult.

“No. No, it’s—“

“It’s what?”

“It’s us.”

If Suna thought he was broken then, he doesn’t know what he is now.

“You’re my ex-husband.”

He takes your hands in his, “and I don’t want to be that anymore.”

“Me neither,” your eyes shine at him in a plea, “I don’t want that either, I promise. I’m just so confused and I need time to think it out and talk it out. I’ve been talking to my friends and Komori’s been helping me—“

“Wait,” Suna whips his wrist to loosen your grip on him, “who is Komori?”

His newfound rage has your hands reaching for him. They wave in the air as if trying to smother his fire but Suna only repeats himself with a singular step back.

“Mo-motoya,” you finally tell him while looking guilty.

“Motoya?” He laughs at the name. Something viscous builds in his gut and it takes too long for him to realize it’s jealousy. The feeling is almost unrecognizable and Suna realizes it’s because he can’t remember the last time he was.

Regret? Yearning? Self pity? Yes, a perfect cocktail for an ex husband but jealousy had never been in the mix. He wasn’t allowed to, not when Suna knew his place in your life as someone on the outside, as someone who once was.

Now he is someone who is. He is yours. He could be all that you need.

“Since when was Motoya your friend?”

“After we divorced. He reached out to me.”

Suna’s barely cognizant. Rage clouds his mind along with the memories of his teammate offhandedly asking about your wellbeing on occasion. He thought that concern was for him when in reality, he’d been talking to you behind his back.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“We just got divorced and he—“

“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”

“What?”

“You don’t have to say it.” Suna runs a hand across his eyes, tired of looking at you for once with that confused expression like you’ve never done anything wrong. Are you blind to what you’re doing to him? Do you even care? Have you been leading him on this whole time? Is this your version of some sick and twisted plot for revenge? “I know that’s all you see me for. You hate me for it. I’m the guy who fucked up. I’m the ex husband. That’s all I am and that’s why you can’t even say you love me back.”

You don’t even grace him with a response and that’s enough to prove that he’s right. The confirmation forces fury to flow into his palms.

“That’s why… that’s why you can’t even talk to me– why you’re talking to Motoya.”

“Everything’s so complicated,” you murmur. “Don’t you talk to your friends about us too?”

Suna’s never considered it. He never needed advising because with you as one of the options, who else would he choose?

He follows your example anyways even if it’s out of spite. Suna’s never been a guy to air out his laundry but if that’s what you want to do, then he will too.

Osamu meets him at his house at the whim of his call. Perks of being your own boss, he guesses. The man mostly responds with facial expressions as he explains his situation on their journey to dinner, refraining from offering advice unless prompted.

He does whisper into Suna’s ear when they enter the restaurant, grazing an elbow against his, “ya gonna be alright?”

“What the fuck is he doing here?”

“Ya know he would have never brought him if he knew,” Osamu pulls him back by the sleeve when the athlete takes a step forward, “ya know that’s how Tsumu is. They’re in their puppy love stage.”

Love. The sound of the word brews an acrid taste in his mouth.

Osamu senses the oversight of his word choice and tries to correct himself, “I mean, they’re attached to the hip right now, ya know?”

“They’ve been together for a year. How are they not tired of each other at this point?”

“Rintaro.” It’s all Osamu says and it sounds a little too familiar to their former captain. It instinctually has him straightening his spine without pushback. The sound of it rattles across his skin: a warning, a reminder.

So Suna takes a breath. He’s different. He’s grown and Osamu allows him to approach the table despite his initial hesitations.

“Oh, Suna, Samu,” Atsumu happily greets. Their arrival has Sakusa removing their intertwined fingers from the table but just by Atsumu’s expression, he can tell they’re now holding hands underneath it.

Suna does his best to commit to his unaffected persona when he sits next to Komori’s cousin with Osamu opposite of him and near his brother. The chef prompts him with a thumbs up every so often, a questionable look whenever they cross gazes. He waves him off every time, focusing on his phone that he closes and reopens apps on. Who was he to think time has changed? You haven’t reached out to him since he walked out on your last argument. It was stupid of him to think any of this would turn out different.

“Hey, Suna,” the man glares when his shin is struck with a shoe. Tsumu simply dismisses it. “Aren’t ya the one that called us out tonight? Why ya staring at ya phone then.”

Samu nudges his brother a warning that the other doesn’t seem to catch.

“What? Omi and I were planning a movie night and then all of a sudden Suna calls to meet– Hey!” Atsumu dodges his brother’s smack and counters with his own precise hit, “I’m just saying! He should hang out if he actually wanted to.”

“Shut up Tsumu,” Suna’s patience is running thin and really, he didn’t even want to do this. He wants to be in your bed or his, with you. He wants the two of you to be okay and maybe he’s being unreasonable. This is confusing and Suna might be asking a lot. He should text–

Slam.

“What the hell is up with ya, Suna?” Equipped with his famously menacing glare, Atsumu’s halfway up his seat and leaned over the table, “ya call us out but then ya decide to ignore us all night.”

Osamu is already pushing his brother away to diffuse the situation but Suna's always been petty, “I called you and Samu.”

He goes on to glare at Sakusa who comprehends much quicker than his boyfriend. The man doesn’t even spare him a glance.

He simply stands up and says, “let’s go, Atsumu.”

It makes Suna laugh because who is he to be all high and mighty when he has a cousin who, the whole time they’ve been teammates, never mentioned he’d been talking to you? Who never once felt compelled to tell him what should have been a harmless truth?

“Sure, see ya. But Sakusa?” Everyone turns to face him, “tell your cousin to keep my wife’s name out of his mouth.”

Sakusa spares him with a blank expression. He allows a single moment to pass.

“Do you mean ex wife? Or did you happen to marry another sorry woman on a whim?”

Vows aren’t meant to be broken but maybe Sakusa’s fucking face is.

#reina.writeshaikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader #suna rintaro x reader #suna x reader #haikyuu angst #suna rintaro angst #currently sleeping rn! she’s q’d bc live reactions are scary

462 notes · View notes

enviedear · 6 months

Note

Hi I love your neighbor!Ben oneshot!! Can I ask if you have anymore headcanons for him?

—aw hi nonnie! ofc i do, i'm always thinking about neighbor!ben. thank you for sending in an ask <3

request | masterlist

neighbor!BEN SOLO...

— he is most definitely the kind of neighbor to knock on your door and ask for sugar or some shit. he always insists it's for leia, but he won't admit that he's the one telling his mom that he'll run over to yours and ask.

"hey neighbor, mom wanted to know if you have any powdered sugar?" "gosh ben, i just gave you some."

— he loves spending his free time in his garage, wide open, blaring music and working on his (and han's) car. i think these songs would be frequently playing from his speaker, 1 | 2 | 3

— insists on mowing your grass, even though your dad can do it just fine. no, ben likes having an excuse to strut around shirtless in your yard. he also will never accept payment for it.

"i can't let you pay me, sir. it's really no trouble."

— when he and his parents get invited over for dinner he'll make sure to ask you about all things poli-sci (he loves to bring up his minor all the time), headlining legal news, and nineteeth century philosophers. if you can keep up with him, he'll get sardonic and try to get you to fumble. if you're lost, he'll be subtly demeaning and solipsistic.

"let me guess? you think dostoevsky had the world figured out don't you?" "yes. why? do you want me to follow the teachings of comte as religiously as you?" he'd grin, "i'm just making conversation, kid."

— ben would always go on night runs, and on days he actually gets off on time, they end up coenciding with the time you walk your dog. he'll find so much joy in catching up to you and annoying the absolute shit out of you.

"you and cujo should really speed up, i can't jog the entire time." "no one asked you to stay with us."

— on the night run note, one evening he'd see a 'missing dog' poster that barely resembles yours and he'd accuse you of being a dog napper.

"holy shit kid, you can't steal people's dogs!" "shut up solo! i haven't stolen anyone's dog." "oh yeah? then why does this ankle biter look exactly like the one in the picture?"

— he really would just do any stupid or barely thought-out thing to get your attention

— he has no personal space, at least when it comes to you. he'll brush against you no question to grab something, he'll let his hands rest on your shoulders when he's behind you, and he'll cut your steak for you without even giving you a questioning glance.

"i can do some things myself you know." you'd groan, when he begins to cut your rib-eye. only for your mother to pipe in, "honey he's being nice! ignore her ben!"

— ben would constantly be invited to family trips, dinners, and events. especially when your parents catch wind that leia and han aren't home much. so expect ben solo to come along for a day trip into the city with you and your parents.

"you don't have to follow me around. i can navigate a museum on my own." "chill out, kid. i'm just trying to get a good eye on the best installation." you'd pause, "are you... talking about me?" with a smirk he'd reply, "you'd like that, wouldn't you."

— you'd take up a little job tending to leia's garden when she's away, and ben will always make sure to keep you in his eyes. he likes the way you look in overalls and his old batman potting gloves.

— after you're done in the garden he'll give you a glass of homemade lemonade with a sprig of mint. he lets you poke fun of him for it.

"all for me, solo?" "hmm, who else?"

— just like ben, you refuse to be paid for your little side gig. but ben will always leave a crisp twenty in your mailbox the day after. you take them and keep them in a red envelope with the words, 'from hot neighbor', written on the flap in sharpie.

han would catch him doing it one day and say, "can't pay yourself a girlfriend, son." ben would just roll his eyes, "it's not even like that. i'm just trying to not be a cheapskate like you." "sure, son. whatever you say."

#ben solo x reader #ben solo x y/n #modern!ben solo #neighbor!ben solo #ben solo #kylo ren x reader #kylo x reader #kylo ren #ben solo headcanons

82 notes · View notes

orangerosebush · 7 months

Note

Remember that part at the end of the first book when Butler is just like “I could snap this little shit’s neck before we die but I don’t want to upset Juliet” like HELLO???? can we talk about that???? the first book relationship dynamics of butler and Juliet and artemis are batshit insane and I love them, we need to bring that energy back

The following line from book 1 is so!!!

“Artemis was the closest thing Butler had to a friend, and Butler was the closest Artemis had to a father, albeit one who obeyed orders.”

There is so much to unpack in Artemis' affection for Butler having much to do with the man being a paternal-adjacent figure in his life over whom Artemis has power/control -- all while Butler is like, "yeah my only friend is my 12 year old boss". Then there's the interesting tension of Juliet being one of the only characters to rib Artemis***, while simultaneously being afraid of Artemis and feeling (in moments of extreme stress) like she doesn't even have the privacy of her own thoughts.

tldr: Someone needs to install a CO2 detector in Fowl Manor.

*** Early series, at least

#artemis fowl

55 notes · View notes

goldenavenger02 · 3 months

Text

the snaps from the same little breaks in your soul

"Cole, what-"

"Nya told me."

"She…" Jay swallowed back the bile that wanted to come out of his throat because 'she told Cole, she told Cole EVERYTHING'. He wasn't surprised when his fear came out in the form of a squeak.

Nya rested her thumbnail against her lips as she waited for the results to come in from the computer, her heart beating anxiously against her chest.

Jay trusted in the sealing power of his wish but she couldn't find it in her to do the same, no matter how much she wanted to.

Not when the yellowish-green scar on her chest still ached, not when she felt so cold at night that not even her brother's elemental fire could warm her, not when she was right back in that lighthouse every time she shut her eyes.

"No search terms for that object appear in the database." The Bounty's text displayed across the screen.

"Scan for the Teapot of Tyrahn below the surface of Ninjago." She commanded, watching as the text box disappeared only to be replaced with a thick, red line slowly making its way up through the tiny Ninjago on the screen.

She knew that the scans were excessive, that if she didn't stop then there was a slim chance that she could undo Jay's wish, that everything they had done would be ruined and that she didn't even know what she was going to do if she found it.

'Touching it will free him, destroying it will free him and locking it in a vault that gets broken into despite the high levels of security Cyrus Borg has installed will end up with him being freed.'

And yet, something in her needed to know where it was, even if it was just so she could ensure that it never ended up in anyone's hands ever again.

"No objects matching the description of "Teapot of Tyrahn" found." The text displayed.

'Then why can't I shake this?'

"Scan for the Teapot of-"

"Nya?"

Nya looked away from the screen despite the "error due to incomplete search term" display covering the screen to see Zane in the doorway of the bridge, only to be filled with relief when he was titanium rather than rusty.

"Hey, Zane," she greeted as she cleared the incomplete search request error and started to clear out her scans, "I was just doing some research on-"

"The Teapot of Tyrahn?" Zane supplied, looking up at the screen as she clicked the button to clear the scan history, making her blood go cold.

"How do you know what that is?"

"It's a historical artifact that hasn't been seen in two hundred years. It would be more strange if I was unaware of its existence," Zane explained before raising an eyebrow at her, "although, it would also be odd if I didn't ask what caused your sudden interest in finding it."

'So I can prevent it from ending up in the wrong hands, so I don't have to feel like my ribs are being crushed by the weight of poison seeping into my body ever again.'

"Just some research," she tried to shrug off his inquiry while walking away from the computer to make her escape, "we should probably go train-"

She was stopped by Zane's cold, titanium hand gently grasping her wrist.

"I am missing a period of time in my logs," he told her before she could pull away or protest at him holding her back from the doorway, "PIXAL thinks that it is a period of about a month and she is unable to restore it no matter how hard she tries."

'Because the timeline was erased to keep everyone, to keep me, from dying at Nadhakhan's hands.'

"I don't suppose you, as well as Jay, know what that is about," Zane continued, only stopping to release his grip on her wrist, "but I do not want to force you to confide in me."

"It's not that, it's…" she pulled in a shuddery breath that only made her realize just how terrified she was.

And not just of what would happen if Jay's wish was somehow undone, but the fear of losing her life had encompassed her in a tight chokehold that refused to release her.

Nya couldn't be sure why she made the following decision, whether it was because it was either to show Zane rather than tell him or just the impulse control that had skipped over her and Kai's entire bloodline.

"I'm…If you're okay with it, that is," she stopped to pull out the wire that was used for Zane's maintenance checks, "It's easier to upload the data, then to talk about it."

"I trust you."

"Okay, but if you could keep this between me and you-"

"Of course, but PIXAL will also have to know. She's in my head, after all."

Zane's smile and joking tone filled Nya with a humorous relief that made her giggle while she plugged the wire into the port on the side of Zane's head before walking over to the computer, this time manually accessing it.

Once she had access to his memory bank, she clicked "add new memory" which she and Zane had created after they returned from Chen's Island so she could fill in the gaps that his new memory bank had lost before she started typing.

She typed every detail she remembered; becoming public enemies, escaping prison, getting stranded, Jay getting taken hostage and hers and Jay's eventual escape; she debated internally for a moment about if she should add details about his father's lighthouse and about Echo, more importantly, if Echo even existed in the new timeline Jay had created.

But with how that event related to herself getting taken hostage and the new scar on her chest, she knew she had to, even if it hurt Zane or worse, hurt their friendship that she hadn't told him until now.

She hit the enter key and turned to see the scanning reflected in Zane's glowing blue eyes for a few moments before he finally met her gaze, the blank stare quickly morphing into deep sadness.

"I think you know why I didn't tell you now." Nya tried to smile while she removed the wire, even though she knew that it wasn't convincing.

She didn't realize just how unconvincing it was until she was pulled into a tight hug by the nindroid who only said one thing but that one thing still filled her with an immeasurable amount of relief.

"I do not blame you for keeping it from me."

…

Jay bit back a curse as he continued to fiddle with the long-abandoned ray gun in the dark, the object in question throwing sparks at his face.

"You stupid, piece of junk, just work." He muttered, waiting until the last ember fizzled out to stick his hands back into the mess of wires and machinery.

The lamp strapped to his forehead wasn't strong enough to illuminate the white scars on the back of his hands, let alone the inside of the weapon that he hadn't tinkered with since before Zane's sacrifice.

But even though his left eye refused to adjust to the darkness, he didn't dare turn the light on; the last thing he wanted was a lecture from anyone about why he was awake when he couldn't tell them why or worse, to wake up Nya, whose sleep schedule had become just as bad as his if not worse.

He would just wait until it was an acceptable hour to be awake and make himself an extra-strong espresso; being jittery throughout training was better than closing his eyes only to be shoved down deep into the nightmare that had been his reality just two weeks before.

Jay lifted the pliers away from the tangled mess and clamped his teeth around the bright red handles before grabbing the wire cutters and snipping right through the blue wire which protested in another round of quick sparks.

"Is that a gu-"

"Ahhh!" Jay screamed before the voice could finish its sentence, launching himself onto his feet and allowing his fists to fill with lightning that illuminated the room, only to light up his best friend's ghostly face.

"Sorry!" Cole shouted, covering his face in defense even though the lightning would easily pass right through him.

"Why are you sneaking up on people?!" Jay shouted as the blue fizzled out, "why aren't you asleep?!"

"I could ask you the same question since it's," Cole paused to look over at the clock on the wall, "three in the morning."

"Really?" Jay asked as he stood up, pulled the headlamp off and stretched his arms with what he hoped was a convincing yawn, "I must've lost track of time. I'll just head to bed-"

He was stopped by Cole's cold hand around his wrist, effectively stopping him in his attempt at a quick getaway.

"What is going on with you?" Jay tried to answer but was cut off by Cole adding onto his question, "What is going on with Nya? Everyone can see you two drifting away from us, and don't think you can lie to me, I know you too well."

"You saved up for this place? Bologna. Whenever money comes your way, you waste it on junk food and video games. What's really up, and don't think you can lie to me, I know you too well."

"Cole, I'm not…" Jay swallowed in order to try and find the words, to find the strength in him to tell him everything, but the only words that came out were, "I'm not ready."

"Jay-"

"The little canary can't find his voice."

"I can't tell you," Jay continued, wiping his arm over his eyes filling with tears while trying to block the mocking tone out of his mind, "I can't tell anyone."

"Why not?"

'Because I'm the reason all of you got hurt.' Jay wanted so desperately to just tell the truth, to let his best friend in, but his lips felt as if the sheet of metal that had been forced over his face in an effort to keep his last wish from being spoken was once again covering them.

"Fine, you don't have to tell me," Cole finally spoke up after pinching the bridge of his nose, his other hand still grasped around Jay's wrist, "but you do need to go to sleep, not just lay down, close your eyes and fake snore until you can keep fiddling with this gun thing."

'That might be the worst idea Cole has ever had, and this is the same guy who tried to make lava with Kai.'

"If you must know, it is a replica copy of Fritz Donnegan's ray gun, the one from Starfarer issue thirty-nine where he goes up against the Kryptamights-"

"Oh, First Master! Just go to bed!"

"Fine, fine!" Jay raised his hands in surrender which finally got Cole to let go of his wrist, "I'm going, I'm going," he let his hands drop only to put the prototype away in case it tried to spark in defiance again, "but you better do something outside of pummeling Kai's Sitar Legend high score into the ground."

"Goodnight, blue bell."

"Same to you, twinkle toes."

Even though he couldn't help himself from smiling when he heard Cole's echoey laugh, it quickly faded when he was hit with the realization that he actually had to go to sleep, in his bed, where the memories of losing everyone to the Djinn blade hovered over his head.

'It's just a couple of hours till sunrise exercise. You can last for a couple of hours.' Jay told himself as he climbed up the ladder and laid down on his pillow, allowing himself to take comfort in the sound of Kai's deep breathing, Zane's loud snoring and Lloyd's occasional shifting in his bed.

Sure, Cole was making rounds through The Bounty and Nya was sound asleep in her room, but this was as close to normal as Jay was going to get until the dreaded training in the morning so he grabbed Mr. Cuddleywhomp from the end of his bed and pulled himself onto his right side.

It wasn't long until his eyes fluttered closed and shut out the world around him, but the sleep he received was anything but the peace that he had hoped for.

"You only have one wish, Jay. What a dilemma," Nya was already growing cold in his grasp, too cold, cold only meant bad things, cold meant dea- "wish me mortal and she dies. Wish her well, and there is no stopping me!"

"You have to make your last wish. You're the only one who can stop him."

His heart was pounding by the time the alarm clock started ringing throughout the room.

Luckily for Jay, the topic remained untouched as he stood in front of all of them with the newly reconstructed battle bot standing behind him at the ready.

"This is the master remote, it controls every single aspect of the bot's infrastructure which means that this stays with me," he stopped to pull out the smaller yet just as advanced secondary remote, "this is the training remote, so you can change difficulty, weapons and speed. Who wants to test it first?"

Jay wasn't surprised to see Lloyd walk forward and slip the helmet over his head without even being asked; he had been assisting with the major improvements after he had been cautioned against diving headfirst back into his usual routine while recovering from Morro.

"Do you know what level-"

"Give me a challenge."

'Maybe I'm not the only one who couldn't sleep last night.' Jay thought to himself while taking in Lloyd's clenched jaw and strained voice.

But, he knew better than to press when that was the last thing he wanted for himself right now, so he grabbed the remote, hit the number seven and backed away to give Lloyd all the space he needed.

Jay knew he was supposed to be paying attention to both Lloyd's technique and the bot's adaptation but he was unable to focus when the ghostly palm pulled him away from the others.

"Cole, what-"

"Nya told me."

"She…" Jay swallowed back the bile that wanted to come out of his throat because 'she told Cole, she told Cole EVERYTHING'. He wasn't surprised when his fear came out in the form of a squeak, "she told you about-"

He couldn't finish his sentence before he was pulled into a bone-crushing hug which made the skin on his arms tingle in retaliation, but he ignored it and returned the hug as his tears made a light 'hiss' against the deepstone armor.

…

Nya hated how damp the storage building was.

She knew better to complain about it when it was keeping them hidden from Harumi, even if all of the clothes, first aid supplies and the perishables had been soaked through and the dampness only made the metal building colder than it was in the harsh fall wind.

It didn't help that it felt all too familiar to Misfortune's Keep.

It had been nearly two years since the timeline reversal and even though confiding in Cole and Zane had been beneficial for her to be able to begin to move on from those events, there were still things that would remind her on how tight that white dress had been despite the extra arms and how tight her throat had been as she tried to get her final words out.

Nya shook away the thoughts and bent down to pick up the drying first aid kit before making her way over to Lloyd.

Lloyd, who was sitting in the corner with his vision not fixated on any one thing as he rested his head against the wall and was more than likely thinking about the others.

Lloyd, who looked so much more like the nine year old in a black hoodie and less like the leader of the resistance.

She couldn't help but wonder if the ache in her chest was how Jay felt right after she had been taken, if he also knew the exact stab of pain from losing everyone he loved all too well.

"You're getting better at hand to hand." Nya tried to break through his silence as she gently pushed back a section of his hair to reveal the graze from the fight in Kryptarium Prison that still hadn't healed.

"My mom told you to tell me that?"

"No one told me to tell you that, and if you remember from my samurai days," she stopped to brush an alcohol wipe over the graze, swallowing back her guilt from the instant hiss of pain, "when it comes to talking to you, I am a shit liar."

Lloyd nodded but stayed quiet as she applied a new gauze pad over the graze and didn't fight back when she started to run her fingers over his collarbones, shoulders, and arms.

"How are your legs?" She asked after confirming that he had come out of the training with zero hairline fractures.

"Fine, you didn't snap any of my limbs," Lloyd insisted, still resting his head against the wall, "can I ask you a question?"

"I don't see why not," she insisted as she grabbed the fabric bandages before gesturing for him to take off his shirt so she could see if the broken ribs were still healing, "good distraction, right?"

"How'd you get that scar on your chest?"

Nya became rigid as her blood went cold.

"I don't wanna pry but I saw it earlier and I just…you don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"What, um…" She stopped to tear off the strip from the roll, making a mental note that she should tell Dareth to check the abandoned clinic again for supplies when he returned, "Is there a reason that you're asking?"

"Because you're all I have left of them and…" Lloyd stopped to swallow but Nya was unable to tell if that was from the pain of her taking off the old bandages that Jay had wrapped neatly around Lloyd's torso just a few days before or from what he said next, "I wanted to make sure it wasn't because of her."

Nya gently ran her hand over the purple and blue splotches that covered his left side, relief only hitting her when she saw that the least severe of the bruising was slowly but surely changing from blue to yellowish-green.

"No, it happened about two years ago, long before Harumi."

"Good," Lloyd nodded, his face visibly relaxing, "so, what fight did I miss then?"

"You didn't miss much. Sky pirates, Dijin wedding and a timeline reversal," she said quickly to avoid dwelling on it longer than she had to, "just another day in Ninjago."

"Would you believe me if I said that I was too tired to ask more questions?" Lloyd asked, wincing as she pulled the bandages firmly in order to make sure they were tight before securing them with a few strips of medical tape.

"Regardless, we should probably go again."

"But-" Lloyd started as he pulled his shirt back on, but Nya cut him off as she offered him her hand for support.

"Ninja never quit, right?"

"Unfortunately."

He put his hand in hers and let her pull him to his feet.

She tried not to remember the many times she had pulled Jay to his feet as they trained and he let her beat him, even if he insisted that he wasn't. It made the scar on her chest twinge with pain when she thought about him for too long.

So she pushed it down and held her fists up while speaking, "Then let's go again."

…

It was quiet in the monastery as Nya brushed the electric blue nail polish over Jay's fingernails.

It had taken quite a bit of filing for them to be the right shape after being in the First Realm, but sitting on her bedroom floor while the faint smell of nail polish hit his nose was comforting.

It meant he wasn't stuck in a foreign realm away and not knowing if she was okay and it also meant he wasn't trapped on Misfortune's Keep and fearing what would happen to her if he gave in to Nadhakhan's demands.

It made the Yin-Yang medallion weigh heavy in his pocket and his internal voice pressured him to "ask her now" but he ignored it; he knew that he could find a better time than while his nail polish was still wet.

"Did Master Wu tell you about the mural?" Nya spoke as she finished painting the nails on his right hand and gestured for him to put his left hand in hers.

He had missed dinner to pick up the medallion in the city and he wasn't that surprised that an announcement had been made in his absence. He shook his head "no".

"He said that he's hiring some monks to paint the "history of Ninjago" on the west side, individual murals of us stopping all those people over the years."

"Oh, that's cool." Jay nodded but he couldn't help but wonder if Nya had told Master Wu about the djinn.

"Lloyd's already calling it "the trauma wall", but Kai lectured him on it and now Cole's talking about finding him a therapist which I'm not totally against-"

"Did you tell Master Wu? About the…you know." Jay trailed off, knowing that part of him was still worried about saying the name aloud as if it would summon the dijin right to him.

"I don't think it's exactly an age appropriate story for a baby."

"Fair point."

"Do you…do you want him to know?"

"You told Lloyd, you told Zane and PIXAL and you had to tell Cole for me," Jay expressed as she let go of his left hand, "I just…if anyone should know, it should be Master Wu, just in case."

He didn't want to go into the "what ifs" right now, the two of them were both painfully aware of any bad possibility that could come from the events of the timeline reversal and this was their first date night inside the new monastery of spinjitzu. The last thing he wanted to do was taint it.

"He's probably still awake, if you want to tell him now," Nya sat back while putting away the dark blue nail polish and pulling out a dark red for herself, "it'll be easier if you don't wait until he's putting paint on the wall, but if you scuff your nails before I put the top coat on, Jay Walker, I swear to the first spinjitzu master himself-"

"I won't walk into the walls, promise."

"We both know you don't even believe that." she smiled before shooing him out the door with a wave of her hand.

It was only when he shut the sliding door, without denting the fresh polish, that he realized his mistake.

'Just tell Master Wu about everything that happened when you're too scared to even say names, like that isn't nearly impossible.'

"Baby steps, Jay. Baby steps," He whispered to himself as he started to walk through the dark halls of the monastery, "you can figure out what to say after you find him."

If anyone had heard him, they would know that he was trying to avoid thinking about his words as much as possible. Even he knew that he was avoiding thinking about it as he poked his head in the common areas that were completely dark for the night.

He grabbed his jacket that was hanging by the door and pushed his arms through the sleeves before walking into the courtyard that was only illuminated by the glow of the moon.

And sure enough, the figure of Master Wu that was shrouded in shadow due to the darkness was standing and staring at the west wall that would soon immortalize everything they had been through in the last few years.

"Master Wu?" Jay asked softly as to not startle him.

"Nya told you about the mural?"

"Yes, yes she did," Jay agreed as he moved forward to stand by Master Wu's side, "we were talking and…well, she said…I have something to tell you."

"Oh?"

"Do you remember when you sent us to investigate what Clouse was doing in Stixx? After he escaped the Cursed Realm?" Jay questioned, figuring that he should start with something he had no problems talking about, "but we missed him because we drew attention of the NInjago City news team and when we got back on The Bounty, Lloyd said that he was experiencing some really intense deja vu?"

"I seem to recall the news footage of you and Nya settling your differences and her using airjitzu, yes."

"I know why, Nya and I both do and we've told a few of the others, but we were talking and I told her that if anyone needed to know, it was you because if somehow it didn't work, you'd be able to help us figure it out. Wish magic is tricky and-"

"Jay," Master Wu's hand on his shoulder stopped his nervous ramble, "I know that you two reversed the timeline where Clouse released an evil djinn."

"Who told you?"

"I became very familiar with time travel long before Acronix hit me with the "time punch", and even before the four of you went back in time and destroyed my brother's megaweapon. When I saw that news footage, I felt the same feeling as Lloyd did, that I had seen this before."

"That doesn't explain how you know about…about him." Jay still couldn't say the name, it made his stomach turn and his tongue feel heavy.

"When my brother returned to help the elemental alliance, he told me very little about what he had seen and heard with Chen as his sensei. But he did tell me that Clouse had a very strong interest in dark magic which included the Teapot of Tyrahn, the same teapot that Captain Soto had famously trapped a djinn by the name of Nadhakhan inside of before marooning the rest of his crew in different realms."

Jay tried not to shudder at the name being said aloud, "so the First Spinjitzu Master used the realm crystal to help Soto?"

"Precisely. I was a teenager back then, so while my father didn't tell Garmadon or I much, I was very good at listening in on his private conversations," Wu's brief smile of fondness from the memory helped relax some of Jay's nervous energy, "would you and Nya like for the defeat of Nadakhan to be a part of the mural?"

"I don't know," Jay admitted, kicking at a loose pebble by his feet, "if no one remembers it, how is it as important as something like Zane's sacrifice, or the Iron Doom?"

"Regardless of whether or not the others remember it, it is still a part of our history. And given the nail polish on your hands, the fact you came out here to tell me at eleven at night and the yin-yang medallion in your pocket, I have a feeling that you and Nya are still finding significance in it."

The medallion weighed heavy in his pocket again, "how did you-"

"My nephew is very happy for you two, and terrible at keeping secrets from people who are not the subject of surprise."

Jay couldn't help but smile at the mental image of Lloyd excitedly telling Master Wu about what he had asked both Kai and Lloyd after returning from asking Nya' parents and telling his own, knowing that the green ninja was just as much Nya's brother as Kai was.

'If it wasn't for that stupid teapot, I wouldn't even be asking Nya to be my yang.'

"Yeah," Jay nodded in response to Wu's question, "It should be part of the mural."

"Very well. You should get back to your date night," Wu nodded, but when Jay started to make his way back inside, he added "and Jay?"

"Yes, Master Wu?"

"Congratulations."

…

Nya ran her fingers over the curves in the medallion, making notes of every little scratch in it; she had taken the gold half while the Oni were trying to break down the doors of the monastery and it had shined despite the lack of light in the sky.

Jay's words had been quick, but heartfelt and when Cole and Kai had yelled about his sense of timing, all he had responded with was "there may not be another time"; even though she had initially been confused, she knew that she was going to say yes as soon as he got down on one knee.

Just being pinned to her chest during the tornado of creation had scuffed it quite a bit, but Kai had taught her years ago how to get scratches out of metal with a scouring pad and once she made note of all of the marks, she was going to fix it.

'Two nights ago, I was telling Jay not to dent his nail polish,' Nya thought to herself when she caught sight of her chipped nails, 'now I'm working out the scratches in the medallion he bought for me.'

Nya knew it could have been way worse than a scratched-up medallion. Cole could have died, Lloyd did die even if it was only for a few seconds, her plan about the golden weapons and Lloyd's plan about the tornado of creation could have failed.

It was not lost on Nya that the biggest repercussions that she was feeling was having to smooth out the medallion and the monastery being slightly more drafty then usual.

It wasn't surprising to her that the others had all turned in early, leaving her alone in the dim lighting of the kitchen to repair her medallion; it was actually nice in a strange way, to be able to just focus on the repairs she was making.

She hadn't experienced that since she had been Samurai X.

She was brought out of her focus of running the scratches over the scouring pad to one of the bedroom doors opening and closing with a couple of creaks that indicated that the new hinges already needed oiling.

'That's tomorrow's project.' She told herself as she heard the footsteps approach her, looking up to see her brother heading towards the cups.

"How's Lloyd?" She asked, making sure she lined up the grooves correctly so she didn't scratch it more.

"He's not in too much pain, all things considered," Kai shrugged as he filled the cup with the filtered water in the fridge, "had to give him the "parents don't define us" talk again."

"So not great." Nya sighed as she put the medallion down to switch to a softer pad to finish polishing the sides.

Every single one of them with the exception of Jay, and she knew that he wouldn't be so lucky if Kai knew about his biological parents, had been on the receiving end of Kai's spiel about being separate from your parents.

Cole during their undercover work for the Ninjago Talent show, Zane when he questioned why his father hadn't removed his memory switch, Lloyd so many times whether it pertained to Misako or Garmadon and even her when she was so frustrated with her mom that it made her want to ignore every single text message and phone call that she received.

Kai had always been at the ready with his rare but wise words and a tight, comforting hug every single time.

"Yeah, but he's asleep now," Kai sat down beside her on the barstool with his glass of water, "can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

"I'm not following." Nya raised her eyebrow as she reexamined the medallion to see that her work had been a success before pinning it back onto her gi, all while a small part of her brain hoped that her brother was referring to something that didn't involve sky pirates.

"About the mural."

"What about it?"

"Oh my-First Master. The one of you and Jay and that four armed genie thing with the lamp! Were you ever going to tell me, Nya?"

'No getting out of it now.'

"Fine, fine," Nya sighed as she rested her elbow on the counter so she was looking directly at her brother's amber colored eyes, the Smith family anger bubbling in her chest, "what do you want me to tell you? About the sky pirates? About being public enemies and being put in Kryptarium? About me dying in Jay's arms? Or just about the evil djinn who tried to kill Jay and tried to force me into being his wife?"

Kai went deathly silent as he looked down at the tiled floor but as soon as she finished speaking, she couldn't help but instantly regret the tone that she had used against her brother.

She hadn't gone into details since she had first typed everything out into Zane's database, she had never recounted the details out loud since they had happened. It made the scar on her chest ache when she found it in herself to look back at Kai's tear filled eyes.

"I-I'm sorry," tears started involuntarily running down her cheeks as well, "everyone else knows and-"

She was cut off by the tightest hug Kai had ever given her, one hand in her hair and the other resting on her upper back, she instantly returned the pressure with her hands wrapped tightly around his torso.

"I shouldn't have acted like that." Nya spoke after a few moments, still engulfed in the hug.

"I shouldn't have pushed. You went to the others in your own time, right?"

"Kind of," Nya nodded against Kai's shoulder, "Cole came to me, but that was because he was worried about Jay and Lloyd asked, but I was trying to distract him and we thought you guys were dead-omph." She was cut off again by Kai squeezing her tighter.

"I love you, Nya."

"I don't think you've told me that in a long time."

Kai finally let go and wiped his face on his sleeve, "me either, I didn't think I needed to say it. But after today I just…I feel like I should let everyone know that, especially you."

Nya nodded, her brother's shout of "we have to go back" as a reaction to Cole's fall and his desperate plea of "buddy, wake up" after they had pulled Lloyd out from under the rubble would forever live in her mind, just like the scarring memories of what she and Jay had experienced.

"I love you too, Kai."

"I know you do," Kai grinned with a hint of cockiness in his voice which made Nya roll her eyes, "I just wanted to make sure that if you wanted to talk to me about it, you knew that you could."

"I know."

"Good, also that if that fucker ever tries to mess with you or Jay again, I'll fist fight him."

Nya chuckled as she hugged him again, tucking her chin against his shoulder as she whispered in his ear, "get in line, Jay and I call first dibs."

#lego ninjago #ninjago #whump #angst #my writing #fic #lloyd garmadon #jay walker #jaya #ninjago nya #ninjago kai #ninjago cole #master wu #ninjago zane #ninjago pixal #trauma #post skybound #the others find out about skybound

44 notes · View notes

testingthewatersss · 4 months

Text

Wounded Trigger warnings for PTSD, mentions of war, torture, etc. Bucky Barnes x F Reader Chapter 1 3880 words angst, comfort. 18+ MDNI He doesn't like med-bays.

Bucky is perched on the end of the bed, hair hanging lamely in-front of his face. Both his metal and flesh hands flex on his lap, he feels his nails bare down onto his jeans, but he ignores it, not even bothering to try and pull his eyes upwards, away from the same spot on the ground that he’d been staring at blankly for the better part of fifteen minutes.

Y/N pushes the door to their room open, it doesn’t creak, but the bottom does offer up a low scraping sound as it skims the plush carpet that the youngest Stark had insisted they had installed in the suite.

“Buck?”

Her voice is soft, softer than he’d expected her greeting to be, anyway.

He tries not to flinch at the use of his name, which despite its quiet volume and the gentle intentions of the woman using it, still seems awfully foreign to his ears.

The door shuts with a dull click, and he can’t help but tense his shoulders, pulling them back until the muscles are taught enough to distract him from the way his head is aching.

“Bucky”

This time, there’s no questioning in her voice. She’s not calling to him in the hopes of a response. He thinks the word is thick with pity, and he can’t bare it.

His cold metal hand reaches up to paw at his eyes. He pushes back against it until it hurts, until he sees stars and the stinging of tears is all but depleted.

“Hey” Y/N soothes, dropping to her knees between his legs, “It’s alright”

She doesn’t touch him yet, she just settles back on her haunches and lets out a sigh.

Bucky can’t tell if its ladened with disappointment or despair, but he feels a burning need to apologise, anyway.

He opens his mouth to speak, but a sob threatens to leap from his chest, so he clenches his jaw, he locks his mouth closed and grinds his teeth together in a futile attempt to hold it back.

Y/N shakes her head softly, reaching up to cup his cheek.

The heat of her hand jars him at first. With the way his eyes had fallen shut, the contact had startled him, and the lingering feeling of contact without pain felt eerily out of place against the back drop of adrenaline that his fight or flight response was still offering up.

Bucky sucks in a harsh breath through his nose, and tries not to pull away.

She hushes him gently, letting her fingers graze his cheek in an effort to remind him that she doesn’t mean him harm.

In no time at all, he’s leaning into her touch, using the gentle pressure to centre himself.

Pleased with this reaction, her other hand comes up to brush long chocolate strands back behind his ears, and Bucky can’t help but blink his eyes back open, and focus them in on her face.

Y/N is smiling, it’s genuine, and proud and Bucky doesn’t think she pities him at all anymore.

She loves him, and it shows.

“‘m sorry”

His voice is a gruff whisper. He forces himself to swallow as she shakes her head and draws herself closer to his body.

“It’s okay,” Y/N swears, steadying herself between his parted thighs, “everything’s okay.”

Bucky doesn’t believe her.

He doesn’t remember how he got here, he doesn’t remember why he’s so upset, and that isn’t a good sign at all.

His mind races backwards in an attempt to retrace his steps.

The mission he’d been on was clear, it’d been a small, easy recon job, he’d gone with Natasha Romanoff.

He quite liked working with the spy, even if she did occasionally bark at him in russian.

Y/N watches as the man’s eyes glaze over, before eventually dropping shut.

She lets him retreat into himself, knowing that he’s using her presence to do so in a way that feels safer than the alternative option of solitude.

Bucky winces, when he finally recalls the gash in his side. He’d pushed the widow out of the way and been caught with a blade for his trouble.

It’s all terribly clear, then. He remembers her thanking him and glaring at his ribs. He remembers the wound throbbing angrily as he pressed the fabric of his vest into it, in an attempt to slow the bleeding.

Metal fingers flutter over to that spot on his bare torso, it finds a mess of thick, warm blood and open skin.

It aches as he prods along its edges, and he can feel the stickiness of the liquid clinging to his body.

And then, just like that, Bucky knows what happened.

Steve had insisted that he get it seen to properly.

He’d tried to argue, to remind the Captain how he’d had much worse over the years, and how the serum in his veins would have the frayed skin looking like new in a few hours, without the need to bother Dr. Banner or the other medical staff with something as stupid as stitching the equivalent of a paper cut.

But in the end he’d surrendered to the fatherly tone and the blatant concern in his oldest friends voice, and so he’d let the man lead him down into the lower levels of the tower, and assured him of how fine he was, even as he’d been unceremoniously stripped out of his tactical vest by a stranger dressed in white clinical gear.

He’d even been excited to see Y/N, despite the fact that he hadn’t envisioned seeing the woman he loved for the first time that day, whilst laying flat on his back on a hard metal table.

Still, he’d been just fine until, Steve had gone to fetch her from where she’d been laughing with Bruce in the adjacent room.

At that point, Bucky Barnes had found himself unable to fixate on any familiar faces, and when met with the lack of that particular distraction, the surface he was on, had suddenly felt a little too cold.

His head had started to spin, and his skin had begun to crawl with memories of the intravenous mixture that used to always accompany rooms that looked almost identical to the one that he was in.

They’d tie him down and pump him full of chemicals that he’d sworn were liquid fire, or, had they drugged him before tying him down?

He expected it’d been a bit of both, he figured that might depend on when it was, on who his owners where.

It wasn’t worth the risk of waiting to find out if it was already too late.

Bucky had bolted upright. He’d tried to catch his breath and remember where he was, but suddenly all he could hear was the beeping of machinery, and the chatter of unseen faces that was just clouded enough to seem like a plausible threat.

He’d been up and moving, though, he didn’t quite remember running.

The sound of his boots on the floors had been the most familiar thing to him at that moment, maybe that’s why he hadn’t stopped. Or maybe that was the anxiety linked muscular response that Bruce kept telling him about.

Either way, thinking back, his quick exit must’ve caused quite a stir, because there had definitely been a siren, and flashing lights that had only served to intensify Bucky’s need to escape.

Lock-downs and rewires, and clean-slates and, cryo-chambers and slack jawed handlers were all he could picture as the rooms and floors of the tower he now called home came crumbling down around him.

Some deep-routed instinct had lead him to the last place he’d felt safe.

With hands grazing the walls in a last ditch attempt to keep himself above metaphorical water, Bucky had found himself back in his room, staring at the bed where his lover had been sleeping when he’d left her early this morning.

He’d let himself head towards the soft surface that seemed to be the only stable thing in the room, and then he’d been still. Sure, his breaths had continued to rip up threw his chest in a violent and terrified rhythm, but Bucky Barnes had found himself, very suddenly, not moving at all.

He’s knows he’s panting again now, as he continues to wrack his brain for the few parts of the journey that are still missing.

Did anyone try and stop him? Did he break something important? Did he hurt someone?

“Bucky” Y/N coos, a palm sliding over his flesh hand, she knows it’s still pressing down on his thigh with enough force to leave a bruise and she feels herself frowning at it unhappily, until he relaxes it a fraction at her touch “Look at me.”

The man hadn’t realised that his eyes had stayed shut, but, he does as she asks, and drags his gaze upwards.

“It’s alright”

She says again, it’s firm but kind.

His head tilts a little as he offers her a disbelieving expression.

Y/N chuckles softly, her fingers curling against his temple.

Bucky has to bite back a pathetic whimper at how nice it feels.

He fights the urge to pull away in an act of self punishment. He doesn’t deserve to feel comforted. He doesn’t even know why he’s upset, but he knows she doesn’t like it when he does that too himself, so he tries to ignore the nagging feeling of unworthiness that’s ever-present in his mind.

“Do you know what spooked you?” She asks earnestly, “So we don’t do it again?”

His back tenses again, shame pulls his blue eyes back to the floor and he forces another dry swallow as he readies himself to speak.

“I-“ Bucky begins, “I don’t like med-bays.”

It sounds terribly childish, when he hears it out-loud, but Y/N nods slowly, an understanding look on her face.

“You’re hurt-” her calm voice murmurs, “- and you’ve been down there before, and you’ve been alright.”

She wasn’t sure if that reminder would be particularly well received, but when she notices the redness creeping up Bucky’s neck to his cheeks, she realises it wasn’t.

“I don’t mean it like that” Y/N corrects quickly, not wanting him to add, ‘I’ve done better before’ to his list of self-deprecating thoughts, “I-“

Bucky Hears her sigh again, but it definitely sounds frustrated this time.

He’s almost worried about the implication of the noise, but then he notices the way that her hands are still soft on his skin- they’re stabilising and kind, and he doesn’t think she’s angry at him, he hopes she’s not, anyway, because he’s really not sure he could take that.

“-I just wanted to know if we did somethin’ different, this time, Buck. Somethin’ that upset you.” Her voice isn’t tight or irritated, that calms him a fraction.

He shakes his head carefully, not wanting her to pull her hand away from his face.

“Just panicked” Bucky confesses, “Rodgers left to grab ya’ and I- I forgot where I was”

His voice is cracking with shame and lingering pain, and Y/N feels her heart strings tighten as she sees how hard on himself he’s being.

“That’s alright” she swears again, “You didn’t hurt anyone, you didn’t do anythin’ other than leave.”

His blue eyes are on hers again. He’s trying to steady himself, she can tell.

Bucky flips his flesh hand over to clutch at hers. He plays with her fingers for a second before inhaling long and slow.

Y/N takes that as her cue to move. She rises to her feet slowly, keeping one hand entwined with his as the other slips round to the nape of his neck.

He knows he should follow her. He knows he should stand and go wherever she wants to lead him. But he can’t, or won’t, or just, god, he realises, he just doesn’t want to move at all.

“Is it sore?” She wonders, eyeing the murky slash that’s still leaking fresh blood in a thin line down his side.

She lets him rest his brow against her stomach as she takes a small step closer towards him.

Bucky shakes his head, he feels the fabric of her t-shirt sticking to his brow and he’s suddenly acutely aware that he’s still half naked.

There’s no shame in that, not with her, but he hates how scarred he must look right now. The white lines of tissue that mare his torso pair well with the shattered remains of his sanity, he thinks grimly that it’s almost fitting that he’s so visibly damaged, it’s like a warning to others that he’s dangerous, that they should stay away-

Y/N hums considerately, the noise is light and nonjudgemental and Bucky makes his shoulders sag in a lame attempt at forced relaxation.

She’s watching him as he does so, she sees his posture droop and lets her gaze continue to sweep over him as she continues to weigh up how urgently he might require medical attention.

“I don’t feel good” he mumbles quietly, “I can’t go back there”

She knows he’s not just talking about the med-bay, she knows he’s terrified.

He doesn’t see her nod, but he does feel her knuckles grazing the deep set scar that’s usually hidden by a tangle of hair at the very base of his skull.

It’s affectionate, it’s gentle and soothing.

“I know.” Y/N replies at last, “You’re not going anywhere”

It’s a promise, Bucky can hear it in her tone, it’s the same tone she has when she tells him she loves him, when she tells him he’s safe and home for good.

Another sob claws at his throat. He tenses again, trying to force it down, but he can’t quite manage to lock his jaw in time, and with a pitiful shiver, it erupts from his lips, leaving him hidden and blushing into the thin cotton veil of Y/N’s top.

He hopes in vain that she’s missed it, but as her arms tighten around him, securing him in her embrace, Bucky Barnes knows he’s caught. He knows he can’t hide from the beautiful woman who’s keeping him safe, and then, in another horrible moment of clarity, he realises that he just can’t hold back anymore.

Y/N slips the hand he’s not holding lower, until it’s flush against the middle of his back. She rubs small circles between his shoulders and she squeezes his flesh palm supportively as he begins to accept the loss of control that she knows is inevitable.

The stinging behind his eyes is overwhelming, now. The pressure is building inside his head, and he can feel his lower lip trembling.

Her voice is telling him that it’s okay to cry, that he’s okay to let go.

Bucky doesn’t want to cry. He’s ashamed enough as it is. He feels weak enough, as it is, but when another sob shakes through him, he doesn’t even try to stop it, he just prays it’s just one more, that he’ll magically regain some self control and be able to pull himself together, but, it’s not, just one, there’s two more, and then three more, and then four, and then before he knows what’s happening he’s weeping.

It’s loud, and wet and painful.

Y/N holds him tighter, murmuring sweet words into his hair as he tries to stifle his wailing.

If Bucky hadn’t been scared before, he’s definitely afraid now; he’s choking on air and it’s making him dizzy, and his vision glazes over before his eyes drop shut, and he realises that it feels like he’s drifting in and out of his own mind as his body betrays him, again.

“Shhhh, now” Y/N purrs, her nails grazing his back, “You’re alright”

Barnes can hear her voice, he can hear her promising him that everything’s okay. But it sounds strangely far away, everything, he thinks, sounds strangely far away. He tries to focus on his own strangled cries, because surely those should seem close, and real and loud, but even they seem like they’re coming from somewhere else.

“Bucky” her voice croons, bubbling over the imagined distance and capturing his attention, “Listen to me-”

Y/N drops to her knees again, she’s cradling his face in her hands, the skin of his cheeks is hot and damp from tears, he lets his head hang low and she feels the weight of it fall into her palms.

“You’re not going anywhere.” she promises, “you’re okay, I’m here, you’re stayin’ with me”

Bucky sniffs, trying to come back to himself.

“Breathe” Y/N instructs, “I’ve got you, Bucky, just breathe for me, it’s okay.”

He obeys as much as he can, dragging a full, cold breath into his lungs, before coughing it out with a whimper.

She nods in approval as he continues to try and correct the way he’d been hyperventilating before.

“Good”

The praise breaks through everything else, and stirs something nice in his chest.

Bucky wants to be good. He want’s to be the best he can be.

He thinks he’s on the right track with that train of thought, until the voices in his head begin to shift towards condescending, and he realises that he can’t alter them to anything else. His head shakes a fraction as he’s overcome with a flash of a long dead handler looming above him, rattling off a long list of commands that he had barely been able to follow, even back then, when obeying had been his sole reason for existing.

A slap hits his cheek in the memory, and he assumes he’s done something wrong, although he has no idea what it could be.

He knows he’s trying his hardest, he was always trying his hardest.

“you want to be the best, don’t you solider?”

The voice is right in his ear. It’s all around him, and he wants to scream. He does scream, but he’s not sure if it’s real, or just in his head.

“Shhhh” Y/N exhales, looking at the man who’s now quaking with a mixture of horror and exertion with nothing but fondness and concern, “you’re with me, remember? Nobodies going to hurt you.”

Bucky knows he’s slipping. He clutches onto her waist like she’s a raft in the middle of a turbulent ocean and it’s all he can do not to get swept away.

At some point, Y/N’s fingers have found there way back up to his hair, she’s caressing the tangled strands by his ears with one hand, as the other cups his jaw to support his unsteady position.

He whines as she tugs at the lengths. It’s a desperate, needy sound, but he doesn’t care. He loves her. He loves the feeling of her skin on his. He loves the way she touches his hair.

“Good” she murmurs again, “You’re doing so good, Buck. It’s going to be okay.”

Bucky feels his chest aching. It’s like his heart is trying to break free from his body and get closer to hers.

He wonders absentmindedly if she knows how utterly devoted to her, he is.

Y/N considers his face again, she brushes his lower lip with her thumb and smiles at his attempts at deep-breathing.

She leans forwards a little, and Bucky feels her lips grazing his brow. He leans into the touch and cries a little less harshly as the heat of her mouth remains on his face.

“I love you” her voice swirls around his skin, her words vibrate against his skull and Bucky wishes that they could chisel themselves into his mind so he could hear them forever, “I love you, so much, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart.

Bucky doesn’t think Y/N has any idea how flattered he is when she calls him that. He doesn’t think she knows how precious her terms of endearment make him feel.

She’s repeating how much she adores him when his chest finally relaxes. The air is expelled from his lungs in a huff, and all the tension from his shoulders despepates, leaving him feeling empty and drained.

Suddenly he realises that he’s not crying anymore. He’s just, shaking and whimpering as he hears her pet name, over and over and over again, looping softly inside his mind like a prayer.

Something must have shown on his face, because when he blinks unsure eyes up to hers, Y/N is gazing at him with a strange expression that seems equal parts protective and proud.

She’s still on his level, there’s adoration pouring out of her in waves.

Bucky feels like he’s made of broken glass, and she’s the only thing holding him together.

“Sweetheart?”

It’s thick with love, it’s dripping in tenderness and fondness and everything good in the world.

“You like that, huh?”

She’s not mocking him, he knows she’s not, she sounds genuinely curious, but when he just blinks slowly, letting cold tears drip from his eyelashes, she decides not to press, she can see from that, that he likes it and that’s enough of a reason for her to call him it forever.

Y/N smiles again, and Bucky can’t believe he’s hers.

He can’t believe that his century of life has lead him to something as good, and pure as her.

“I know you’re scared-” she whispers, as he swipes at his eyes with metal fingers that are still tinted with blood from his wound. “-but you’re okay, everthing’s alright.”

Bucky offers her a shaky nod to convey the faith he wants to have in her statement.

She lessens the hold she has on his face, and strokes his cheeks with tender affection.

He feels the pads of her fingers clearing away tear tracks, and sniffles a little in response to the vulnerability he’s feeling under her gaze.

God, he loves her.

Telling her that seems important, now.

She’s heard him say it before, of course.

They’ve been together a while, and he’s not shy about confessing the depth of his affections for his partner, in fact, the other inhabitants of the tower loved to tease him about the way he clings to Y/N’s side. They say he’s love-sick, and over-protective. He knows that they’re right, so he just shrugs at the comments and tells her that she’s his world.

Usually she laughs, her face lighting up with sheer elation, as she pecks a kiss on his cheek and tells him that they feelings mutual.

He wants to see her looking at him like that now. But he can’t make himself speak. He can’t make the words leave his lips, he supposes he’s holding back because he’s afraid of losing control again, but with the way that Y/N is watching him calmly, her brown eyes shining, he can’t bring himself to feel too badly about his lack of bravery. She seems to think it’s okay for him to be this weak sometimes, and if she thinks that, then maybe he should too.

[ x ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ]

34 notes · View notes

tarisilmarwen · 5 months

Text

Title: Little Wooden Lightsaber Boy

Fandom: Star Wars Rebels

Rating: K+

Pairing/Relationships: Ezra/Sabine

Character(s): Sabine Wren, Tristan Wren, Alrich Wren, Ursa Wren, Tiber Saxon, Darth Maul, Ezra Bridger, Kanan Jarrus, Hera Syndulla

Genre: Romance/Drama

Summary: Life Day at the Wren stronghold is always a big affair, and this year Sabine gets a very special present--a little wooden figure of a handsome Jedi general. Nutcracker AU.

AO3, FFNet

@sabezra-life-day-celebration

It's late, because surprise surprise I had a plot bunny bite my ankle and get Ambitious, but here is my fic for Sabezra Life Day Celebration. Hope you all enjoy!

---

Sabine loved the winter holidays.

It was one of the only times in the year the Wren Stronghold came alight with color and music, the normally dour gray halls festooned with green garlands and red ribbons, bright glowing glass orbs nestled in the branches of the enormous evergreen tree she and her extended family went out and cut down each year, hauling into the great hall with laughter and a unity of purpose. The fires stayed burning almost all night and her father piped festive songs and carols from giant speakers in his artist studio, the notes carrying down the halls and making the frozen palace alive and breathing with warmth.

She sat at one of the long tables now, a piece specially set out for the occasion, crowded between a half-dozen like it and covered with a soft, immaculately white tablecloth the color of the falling snow. Her fingers itched to draw, as she took in the twinkling splendor of the Life Day tree, glimmering yellow and violet and green and orange-gold in the corner.

It was technically a Wookie holiday, Life Day, but since the end of the Clone Wars and the victory of Coruscant, the winter celebration had spread throughout the galaxy, each planet in the Republic popping up with their own traditions and customs. Sabine had only been a toddler, but all her life she'd heard the stories—about how the Jedi Order bravely uncovered a horrible Sith plot, overthrew the Chancellor and installed a new era of peace and prosperity.

A prosperity they were heartily enjoying now, she thought, eyeing the platter of roast nerf ribs being passed down the table.

She grabbed a chunk from the platter and bit into it eagerly, the warm seasoned juices filling her mouth.

"Sabine!" her mother chided, from her spot at the head of the table, a place of prominence befitting the Countess. "Manners!"

Sabine grabbed up her napkin and wiped her chin, grinning cheekily at Ursa as the festivities carried on. Her favorite part of the night was coming up—the traditional Mandalorian dances and gift exchange. They had to entertain a few other clans this year—the stronghold was quite crowded—so she and Tristan had promised to be each other's dance partners all night, to stave off any untoward attempts to seduce either of them, any political proposals that might have been sprung on them unexpectedly.

Her brother was already reaching for her hand, urging her out onto the dance floor in the center of the Great Hall. Sabine took one last bite of succulent rib roast, then put her hand and her trust in Tristan, who led her to the center of the floor and kept close to her as the music grew louder.

"So far so good," he quipped to her, as the music played on, loud and raucous as only a Mandalorian celebration could be, bodies breaking off from the dining tables and joining them on the dance floor. "I don't think I've seen a clan head look your way yet," he continued, teasing.

Sabine rolled her eyes with long-suffering affection. "Let's try to keep it that way," she said.

She stayed close to her brother as the night and the party drew on. Her father eventually emerged from his studio, beaming brightly as he presented Tristan and Sabine and the other young clan heirs with their gifts. Sabine accepted the brightly-wrapped package eagerly.

She tore the paper, the gilded green and gold coming off the box easily under her hands. She carefully lifted the lid of the white box and set it aside, gasping as she saw the contents.

A beautifully carved and painted wooden figure lay in the tissue paper. Sabine marveled at her father's craftmanship. The figure was immaculately designed, styled to look like an armored Jedi Knight from the Clone Wars, with a smart-looking blue hauberk and tabbards, orange piping along the sides of its tunic and leggings. It had a handsome tan face and bold black dots for eyes, and the hair was a blue-lined black painted on the back of its head. It had a prominent hinged jaw, a wood piece that connected to a lever in its back. Sabine carefully lifted the figure out of its packaging and worked the lever, seeing how the device fit together.

It was a nutcracker. A decorative kitchen tool, meant to crush the hard shells of koja and areca and a bevy of other species.

Sabine breathlessly thanked her father, one arm squeezing around him while the other clung to her prize.

"He's beautiful!" she told him, gazing once again with admiration at the little carved figure.

Alrich beamed with pride, launching into a prepared explanation of his artistic process, pointing at various parts of the nutcracker and explaining them.

Sabine listened with rapt attention, the artist in her appreciative and impressed. The gift exchange done, she dismissed herself from her father's presence, sitting back down at her place at the table and just watching the party continue on, late, late into the night as the fires popped and the drinks flowed freely.

Her gaze kept straying to her nutcracker, and more than once she let her fingers feather over the fine details, the meticulously painted golden fasteners and the sweeping lines that delineated armor pieces.

She was so caught up by the workmanship that she didn't notice when her distant cousin, Tiber of Clan Saxon, darkened her shoulder, not until he snatched the wooden figure from her hands and brought it up to his face to sneer at it.

"A little old to be playing with dolls aren't you, Miss Wren?" he huffed.

Sabine's mouth soured immediately, and she made a grab for her father's present. "Give that back!" she demanded. "It's mine!"

Tiber held it away from her, at arm's length with a curdled disdain. "What is this even supposed to be?" he asked snidely.

Sabine glared icily. "It's a Jedi General," she told the older man, hotly. "Give it back."

Tiber dodged the swipe she made for it with her hand, stepping away from the table. "Poor craftsmanship to fit a poorer subject matter," he dismissed. "What paltry Clan Wren trash."

Sabine watched in horror as he dropped her gift carelessly on the ground and stomped on it with his metal-lined boot.

"Hey!" she objected in distress, diving for her nutcracker.

Tiber was already stalking off, exiting the hall with a handful of his entourage, not even paying her a spare glance behind. Sabine glowered darkly as she carefully cradled her nutcracker to her chest, brushing off the scuff marks Tiber had left in the paint.

Her heart panged in dismay as she found that she couldn't erase a couple of the scratches. They dug into the wood of the figure's cheek, two ugly lines that marred her Jedi's smiling face.

Sabine tried her best to smooth out the gouges but it was no use, and she bit her lip, holding back her emotions.

As if sensing her sorrow, her father appeared at her shoulder.

"What's wrong, Sabine?" he asked, brown eyes full of concern.

Her mouth pinched and twisted as she explained, holding out the nutcracker to him. "Look what Tiber did to your work!" she complained, eyes stinging, blinking hard.

Alrich took the wooden figure gently in his hands, making a quick scan of the damage.

After a moment he smiled.

"Oh that's not so bad," he said. From his pocket he pulled out a little white helmet, styled after the clones of the 501st, Skywalker's Fist. He slid the wooden helmet into place on the nutcracker's head. "See? He's all right," he assured her, handing it back.

Sabine took the nutcracker in her hands, begrudgingly admitting to herself that the helmet suited the little wooden figure, made it look a little more authentic and complete. She cradled the wooden man to her chest, vowing not to let it out of her sight, holding it like a precious jewel against her body.

She stayed far away from the members of Clan Saxon the rest of the night.

***

The fires were low-burning embers and coals, the hall growing cold and dark, by the time the party finally wound down. Sabine bade goodnight to her family—and her nutcracker, giving it a little kiss on the helmet before stowing it safely away in one of the armor cabinets—and retired to bed.

Alone in her room, however, watching the starlight and falling snow outside, Sabine found herself too wound-up to sleep. A strange agitation kept her awake, tossing and turning long hours until she gave up and rolled out of bed.

For a while she painted, scratching her brushes on a canvas with idle consideration. Nothing really emerged from her footling, mostly just abstract ideas here and there. Biting the end of her paintbrush she decided she needed a little more inspiration.

She grabbed one of her spare sketchbooks, slid a thick brocaded robe on over her shoulders and short silken nightdress, slipped her feet into her house slippers and stole down the dark quiet hallways back to the great hall.

The room glowed with soft multicolor light from the glass orbs in the tree. There was a soothing, peaceful kind of silence to the room. Sabine liked how the glow bounced off the walls, played with the edges of the transparisteel panels of the windows.

She sat and sketched the tree for a few moments, enjoying the quiet scritch of her pencil on the paper.

Her eyes stole towards the armor cabinet in the corner. It held her mother and father's ceremonial beskar, and now it kept her nutcracker safe. Sabine felt an urge to get it out again, and didn't resist that urge. She crept to the cabinet, stepping softly even though she didn't have to, even though everyone else in the stronghold was probably asleep, grabbing the clutch and lifting it, making the hinges squeak as she opened the door.

Her father's gift was right where she left it. Sabine reached for him and sighed in awe of the craftmanship yet again, holding the wooden figure against her stomach with a tight embrace.

She walked back over to the throne on the dais at the other end of the room, sinking onto the comfortable cushion and just... letting the quiet fill her. The warm glow from the tree, the stillness, it was a better lullaby to her over-excited mind than anything else.

She found herself curling up on the long cushion, nutcracker tucked under her arm and robe draping over her feet, her breaths growing deeper...

***

She woke, groggy and confused, in the wee hours of the night, with that agitation back, along with a strange sense of unease.

Sabine blinked, squinting through the dark. The warmth of the tree wasn't reaching her anymore, and she shivered, tucking her arms inside her robe as she sat up.

As she was trying to pinpoint the cause of her apprehension, there was a scurrying of shadows in the corner of her eye.

Sabine's head whipped in that direction, her eyes straining, but she couldn't see anything.

She stepped down from the dais to the floor, glancing warily around.

Pinpricks raised on her arms, her unease growing. She still couldn't see any danger but...

Wait, where was her nutcracker?

Sabine's chest jolted with a shot of panic as she realized her father's gift wasn't with her, wasn't on the throne where she'd left it. As her head whipped around in search of it, something else alarming caught her attention.

She tilted her head back, eyes squinching in confusion.

Was the tree... bigger?

No, she realized, glancing back towards the dais and mentally measuring the height of the steps. She was smaller. And not just smaller, she was shrinking.

Alarmed, Sabine gaped up at the tree now towering above her, massive. The delicate glass baubles now looked like huge boulders, the pines as large as spears. Her chest clutched and she staggered back in disbelief, gawking about her now-giant surroundings.

"No no no no, this can't be happening," she said in a small, panicked voice. She was having some kind of horrible dream. This couldn't be real.

It felt terribly real.

As Sabine clutched arms around herself, willing herself to wake up, the scurrying shadows returned, vague shapes taking form in the darkness all around her.

She backed up, and backed up, but didn't miss how the shadows coalesced into humanoid figures. A face emerged from the darkness, malicious, skin shockingly patterned in red and black, with eerie yellow-gold eyes and a head ringed with horns like some kind of twisted crown.

Sabine's breath hitched and she stiffened, recognizing the face from old historical holos.

The face came with a snide voice.

"This is the heir to Clan Wren?" The figure she could now identify as a Zabrak shook his head condescendingly. "How disappointing. Mandalore has fallen far indeed since I ruled it."

Her teeth ground stubbornly, fear disappearing behind a glare as she put a name to the ugly face. The Usurper of Sundari, the head of Crimson Dawn, a menace and a thorn in Mandalore's side for years. What was he doing in the stronghold?

"Unshrink me and then get out of my house!" she demanded.

Maul pinned her with a malicious sneer. "No," he said, chillingly. "Tonight... I will take my revenge on all the clans that betrayed and unseated me."

Sabine would have snorted and rolled her eyes, made a smart comment about how ridiculous a notion that was given that they were both apparently a foot tall, but then Maul pulled out a wicked-looking silver hilt and ignited it in a red flash.

Her throat caught, eyes widening at the crimson lightsaber blade, humming ominously. Behind the Sith came armor-clad figures from the shadows, Mandalorian warriors arrayed with the colors of their lord, Maul's underlings. She backed up again, apprehensively, heart pounding, trying to remember how to wake herself up because surely this had to be some kind of nightmare.

Maul savored her moment of terror, raising his saber and beginning to charge for her.

Sabine braced herself to fling back—

Something leapt through the air to land in-between them, a blue-clad figure that held up its own hilt and ignited it with a burst of blazing bright green.

Her eyes widened further, a thrill and sense of awe moving through her.

It was her nutcracker, no longer still and wooden and tiny, but moving, made of flesh, and her size.

Shockingly alive.

Maul seemed only mildly perturbed by the interference, frowning in displeasure before motioning his troops forward.

"Kill the Wren heir," he ordered. "The Jedi is mine."

The Mandos rushed forward past him, surging towards her in a charge. Her nutcracker intercepted them first, green blade slashing out, striking armor and limbs. Many of them surrounded him, leveling their blasters at his helmeted head. With an elegant precision she had only seen in holos he deflected red shots off his blade, air filling with the cacophony of laserfire.

For a moment Sabine was pinned in place, frozen with horrible indecision—she had no weapons and there was no way she'd fit into her parents' beskar as she was, if she could even reach the handle for the cabinet—but then she tightened her fists and steeled her resolve. She was Mandalorian. Her very body was a weapon.

The first soldier that made it past her nutcracker's guard to attack her got his knee kicked in for his trouble. Sabine drew back her elbow and slammed it across the helmeted face, snapping his head aside.

He crumpled, and she picked up his heavy sidearm, taking aim at the other warriors, shooting them with indiscriminate desperation.

One went down, two more were distracted enough by the hits she landed that they were easy pickings for her nutcracker Jedi General's emerald blade, falling with loud pained cries as the lightsaber pierced them.

Sensing movement at her right, Sabine whipped around, firing, only to feel the blaster ripped from her hands by an unseen force.

She gasped, stumbling upright, looking up at the cruel yellow eyes of Maul as he raised his glowing red blade vindictively.

It started to fall.

Sabine flinched, but a second later a green blade blocked the red one, her nutcracker moving quickly to protect her, breathing hard inside his clone trooper helmet.

Maul's face twisted in rage and he shoved the other man off, attacking viciously, blade crashing again and again in heavy overhead blows upon her nutcracker's guard.

Sabine looked around for another weapon, but she couldn't find one—the other Mandalorians lay dead on the ground but their blasters were missing, nowhere to be found. Her Jedi was panting audibly now even across the distance, fatigue evident in his movements, slowly giving ground to the Sith Lord's onslaught.

He blocked again and again but the attack was merciless, coming harder and faster as Maul's face screwed with fury, bearing down on him.

Sabine watched with horror as her nutcracker Jedi was forced to his knees, kicked hard in the chin and sent falling to the ground. Maul crowed in victory, raising his saber for the final blow.

"No!" she cried, rushing forward, pulling one of her house slippers off and leaping at Maul's back, beaning him hard in the neck with the leather-tipped sole. "Leave him alone!"

Maul grunted, taken aback by her assault, and the hard heel whacked solidly against his back and head as she slammed the slipper into him, beating at him desperately with all her strength.

A hand like a steel timber caught her chest and pushed her back, sent her stumbling but not falling. Sabine looked up defiantly into the red-rimmed yellow eyes that boiled with anger at her.

Those eyes turned away as the hum of the green saber vibrated from behind. Maul angled to address the threat, red saber lifted but... stiffened. The yellow Sith eyes went wide as he and Sabine realized where the emerald blade had stuck.

Dead center in the Zabrak's chest. A fatal, killing blow.

Her nutcracker pushed the blade in slightly deeper, eliciting a dying gasp from Maul, who dropped his saber and clutched at the Jedi's own, expression in disbelief and shock as the other man twisted him around, away from Sabine, his body speared on the tip of the green blade as her nutcracker crouched protectively in front of her.

The Sith slid off the blade with a dying gasp, crumpling into a heap on the ground. He stilled, and moved no more.

The green blade extinguished.

The heavily-breathing figure stayed curled in his crouch for a long time, long enough that Sabine began to worry if he was injured, but then he straightened, drawing her immediate attention.

Sabine watched, heart still rapidly thumping, as her nutcracker rose up, hands reaching softly for the edges of his clone trooper helmet.

The helmet was slipped off, gently, revealing soft blue-tinted dark hair. The boy—for it was unmistakably a boy now, young, about her age—seemed to contemplate and study his own helmet for several seconds.

Then, he tucked the helmet under his arm and turned towards her.

Sabine started, her heart and throat catching.

Oh. Oh he was cute.

Boyish, lazy half-smile, tanned skin the color of warm amber, shockingly electric blue eyes that she found absolutely mesmerizing.

Sabine swallowed, feeling at a loss for words.

Her nutcracker spoke, instead.

"Thanks," he said, dipping his head respectfully, in gratitude. "You saved my life. I couldn't have beaten him without your help."

"It was nothing," she heard herself saying in a daze, the words floating around her. "Couldn't let my favorite Life Day present get shanked by an actual demon."

His smile widened, teeth bright white against his darker skin and she almost melted. Sabine shook herself, chiding herself for being so overtaken by a pretty face, and slowly approached him.

The closing proximity still made her heart thud, painful in her chest. She willed herself to be calm as she reached him. Her hand drifted up towards his cheek, touching twin thin red scars that mirrored the scratches Tiber had inflicted upon her nutcracker, what seemed like a distant eternity ago.

"Sorry about those," she muttered. "Tiber was a jerk."

He shrugged, nonchalantly. "Happens when you're stuck in a twelve inch wooden body," he dismissed. Blue eyes sparkling, he held his hand out to her. "Hey, you wanna get away tonight?"

"Get away?" she repeated, absently, still entranced by his face and smile and shining eyes.

"Yeah," he confirmed. "Come with me. I want you to meet my folks."

Head reeling, Sabine found herself nonetheless placing her hand in his. "Moving a little fast, aren't we?" she said. Her body pulsed with electricity, with adrenaline, with a thrilling exhilaration she couldn't put a name to or define. "I don't even know your name..." she trailed.

"It's Ezra," he offered up, so very casually, as he began to lead her into a white snowy mist that had suddenly appeared around them. "Ezra Bridger."

"Sabine," she told him, blushing as she stared at their entwined hands. "My name's Sabine."

***

The white twinkling snow-covered wonderland he led her out the door into couldn't have been Krownest, she determined. The trees had never sparkled so brightly, the sun had never been so warm and yellow. There had never been such a rainbow of color glittering in the depths of the snow.

There had certainly never been any green-skinned Twi'leks with glimmering translucent wings living in the woods around the stronghold, and yet that was exactly who met them now, bare green arms reaching for Ezra's face like a fretful mother's, worried green eyes searching him.

"Are you hurt?" she asked anxiously, and for the first time he let Sabine's hand fall, reached to embrace the woman and reassure her.

"I'm all right, Hera," he said. "Sabine here protected me."

The woman—fairy?—turned to Sabine, who pushed her bangs out of her face self-consciously, feeling awkward.

A warm smile lit the woman's expression.

"Thank you," she said. "We owe you a debt of gratitude."

Sabine shrugged, making a noncommittal sound. There were other beings starting to crowd around her, aliens of every kind, all sporting the same kind of shimmering frost-covered wings the Twi'lek woman had. She was clearly their leader, and she clapped her hands to call for attention.

"Everyone, everyone!" she addressed. "Let's not overwhelm her." The warm smile turned on Sabine again, as Hera extended a hand and placed it on her shoulder. "Would you like to join us for the Life Day feast?" she asked. "It's the least we can do to thank you."

Sabine's mind was still reeling, still convinced she was half-dreaming, but she nodded mutely, gawping, trying to take everything in. There was a man hovering by Hera's shoulder, teal-eyed and broad-shouldered, and he nodded at her in acknowledgement and respect as Ezra led her past him.

Her nutcracker brought her to a brightly-lit clearing, where dozens of beings milled about, dancing, singing. It didn't seem like they were on Krownest anymore, at least not from the gray-green moss-covered walls of stone, rising up all around her.

What followed next was the most wonderful dream. A festive party was conducted before her eyes, full of more color and life than she'd ever seen. Hera and her partner—a man she learned was called Kanan—asked her a million questions she couldn't keep up with, made Ezra recount the story of how she had bravely saved him a dozen times. Spectators to the story ooh-ed and aah-ed appreciatively at the the appropriate dramatic places. Ezra himself stayed by her side the whole time, hand clutched tight around hers.

Sabine's heart stuttered and stammered. She traced the edges of Ezra's face with her eyes, watched every small movement of his face as he rambled amiably with the others, greeted each party guest with a smile and a joke to set them at ease. A longing tugged at her chest, painful in how much she wanted this, wanted to stay with him in this wonderful, magical, inexplicable moment of surreal joy and light.

He seemed to sense her troubled heart, looking over at her in concern.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked.

Sabine felt a shudder run through her whole body, felt herself gripping tighter to his hand.

"I just..." she said, trailing off with a dry throat, suddenly fearful. "I don't want this to end."

His reassuring smile lit up the depths of her heart, filled her with a giddy rush. "I'm not going anywhere, Sabine," he promised. "I'll stay right here."

Her chest clenched, eyes stung as she held back tears.

The celebration wound down, the brightly diverse figures slowly ceding space to Hera and Kanan, who danced intimately in the center of the floor, entwined in a way that made Sabine jealous. When the music ended, there was a certain finality to it, and Sabine felt herself already missing the music and light of the party, so different from how her family had conducted it, but beautiful and wonderful all the same.

Ezra pulled her up from their seats and guided her onto the back of a leathery-hided creature, helping her into a gilded seat strapped upon it. The creature bellowed, low and mellow, filling Sabine with a giddy high of adrenaline.

"I don't want this to end," she said again, thrilling as Ezra came to sit beside her on the purrgil.

His smile was thinner now, bittersweet. "You have to wake up, Sabine," he told her. "You can't stay here."

"Will I see you again?" she asked anxiously, clinging to him like he would slip away if she let go.

A small nod, so slight and imperceptible she almost missed it. "Trust in the Force," he whispered, and then the purrgil was lifting off, the snow-covered ground was falling away below them and her eyes were filled with twinkling blue stars in a winter sky.

Giddy, she felt a rush of speed press against her front, blue glowing hyperspace filling her eyes, hurtling her forward into the cosmos, into a warm ether that felt like home.

***

Sabine stirred stiffly, blinking her eyes open at the white morning light that was falling into her face.

Confused, she took in the quiet great hall. The tree in the corner was normal-sized, the tables were all still there, cleared off and pushed to the sides like they had been when she'd stolen down there.

Her nutcracker was by her side, underneath her arm.

Feeling a great sinking disappointment, Sabine sat up, a groaning sigh escaping her.

"Oh don't tell me it was all just a dream..." she moaned, holding up her nutcracker. His black dot eyes stared back at her, painted smile still and friendly.

Sabine pressed her lips tight, heart and mood drooping, trying to remember every second of her time with Ezra. His warm easy nature, bright smile, handsome face, eyes blue as hyperspace, how quickly he laughed and how wonderful it sounded when he did.

Great. He'd ruined her for other men and he wasn't even real.

Dismally, Sabine gathered herself up, picking up her sketchbook and starting to head for her bedroom.

Voices from the entrance hall caught her attention, as she was moving through the passage. Her mother and father, talking in a low voice to someone standing just inside the door.

"Last night, you said?" Ursa was saying, sounding concerned.

"Yes Countess, we believe he used Dathomirian Nightsister magick to conduct his attack," replied the visitor.

Wait a minute... that was Kanan's voice.

Breath hitched, Sabine crept closer to the entrance hall, now fully alert and tuned into the conversation. She peeked around the corner, spying her parents and a pair of strangers in brown robes. She only see Kanan—and yes it was him—through the gap left by her parents' backs. She couldn't see her father's face but from his troubled tone she knew he was frowning, brows wrinkled.

"Several of the clan heirs mentioned having nightmares last night," Alrich said. Sabine slipped into the room, walking up behind her father, pulse rapid, trying to peek around him. "You're saying that was actually part of a psychic assault?" he asked.

"It was," Kanan confirmed, nodding gravely. "My padawan and I did our best to minimize the damage and protect your minds."

She had a view of the other visitor now, and her eyes slid off Kanan to him as Kanan spoke.

She forgot how to breathe, her chest swelling, head tingling.

Soft dark hair, thin padawan braid tucked in behind his right ear. Mesmerizing blue eyes that met hers across the way, pinching with concern. Amber skin, marred by two twin scars across his left cheek.

Sabine reeled. She felt light, lighter than air. Her nutcracker Jedi stood there before her, real and breathtaking. Surely he felt her elation, for the corners of his mouth twitched, confirming her recognition, that he knew she knew he was the one who had come to her rescue, held her hand, taken her on a such wonderful starlit journey.

Dropping her sketchbook and Ezra's miniature wooden replica she rushed forward, flinging herself into him, crashing her lips against his and kissing hard.

He yelped in surprise, jolting, and Ursa gave a scandalized and embarrassed, "Sabine!" behind her.

---

Sabine: *meets cute Jedi boy, immediately causes political incident*

How did Alrich manage to style his nutcracker almost exactly like Ezra? IDK, weird Force stuff or something, we're coasting mostly on Vibes here don't look at me for a logical explanation lol.

Thanks for reading!

#star wars #star wars rebels #ezra bridger #sabezra #sabezralifeday2023 #prompt fics #fanfiction

34 notes · View notes